Sustainable Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient production through efficient resource intake: quantifying feedstocks, mass agents and utilities by one single metric
Special Symposium - Environmental Protection & Sustainability
Environmental Protection & Sustainability - II
Keywords: API, resource use, efficiency, sustainability metrics, exergy
Sustainable Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient production through efficient resource intake: quantifying feedstocks, mass agents and utilities by one single metric
J. Dewulf*(1), G. Van der Vorst (1), W. Aelterman (2) and H. Van Langenhove (1)
(1) Research Group EnVOC, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
(2) J&J PRD, Janssen Pharmaceutica nv, Turnhoutseweg 30, 2340 Beerse, Belgium
* presenting and corresponding author
It is obvious from the E-factor as defined by Sheldon (1997) that the chemical industry and particularly the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industry are prominent sources of pollution: for 1 kg of pharmaceuticals the intake can be up to 25-100 kg. This means that waste production can be 100 times higher than the net production. It is obvious that the best approach to reduce environmental impact is through reduction of resource intake: it results in resource depletion reduction and decrease of emissions at the same time.
It is not surprising that indicators for mass resource efficiency (e.g. reaction mass intensity, kg raw materials/kg product, ... ) are of common practice in fine chemistry to assess environmental sustainability (Lapkin, 2006). Energy resource requirements however are usually hardly considered. In the best case, ‘red light’ guidances are taken into account, e.g. setting minimum and maximum operating temperatures and pressures, rather than quantifying specific energy limits in terms of J/kg final product.
The scope of this contribution is to come forward with a quantitative environmental sustainability tool for fine chemicals and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) production that enables simultaneous mass (feedstock, mass agents) and energy resource (utilities) intake, in order to prevent that savings in mass resource intake are overrided by huge energy intakes, and vice versa.
The tool is based on the second law of thermodynamics, which today is a rapidly growing base for process evaluation (e.g. Dewulf et al., 2000; 2005; Haynes and Wepfer, 2002; Szargut, 2005; Dewulf and Van Langenhove, 2006). The tool is illustrated with a concrete process at the Janssen Pharmaceutica plant, Belgium, where two diastereomeric intermediates in the chemical synthesis of a new drug have to be separated. Taking both mass and energy intakes at the process level, the plant level and the overall industrial production chain, crystallisation and chromatography are evaluated, where crystallisation proves to be the most resource efficient process.
References:
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Dewulf J. and Van Langenhove H. (2006) Exergy. In: Renewables-Based Technology. Eds. J. Dewulf and H. Van Langenhove. Wiley, Chichester. pp.111-125.
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Lapkin A. (2006) Sustainability Performance Indicators. In: Renewables-Based Technology. Eds. J. Dewulf and H. Van Langenhove. Wiley, Chichester. pp.39-53.
Sheldon R.A. (1997) Catalysis: the key to waste minimization. J. Chemical Tech. Biotech., 68, 381-388.
Szargut J. (2005) Exergy method: technical and ecological applications. WIT Press, Southampton, UK, 192pp.
Presented Monday 17, 11:55 to 12:15, in session Environmental Protection & Sustainability - II (S-7B).
