Section Eleven
POLLUTION PREVENTION
76    SELECTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESSES
FOR INDUSTRIALIZATION PROJECTS FROM THE
STANDPOINT OF CLEAN TECHNOLOGY
Joris Wotte, Professor and Director
Bernhard Gemende, Professor
Dresden University of Technology
Process and Environmental Engineering Institute
D-01062 Dresden, Germany
INTRODUCTION
Sustainable development in the industrial countries predominantly will be based on how far
we shall be successful in applicating Low- or Non-Waste Technologies (LNWT), i.e., introducing Clean Technologies in all industrial branches. Therefore in connection with industrialization
projects the correct selection of a technological process among several possible variants for
meeting an existing demand of national economy from the standpoint of Clean Technology is of
outstanding importance.
A precise way of evaluating technological processes, in order to develop and to introduce
LNWT, theoretically would be by cost-benefit-analysis. In this connection not only technological
and economic influences should be taken into consideration but also ecological and social aspects. The question of monetary evaluation of environmental impacts and similar effects, however, has not yet been solved at the international level. Therefore other ways must be found for
evaluating technological processes.
For that reason by the European Economic Commission of the UN already in the middle of the
eighties a manual was elaborated by a special task force under Eastern German leadership. In the
years since 1984/85 at the TU Dresden the method offered in the manual was tested and completed especially for industrialization purposes.
The method developed may be used
• to compare several technological processes (at least two) for the production of a defined product,
• to evaluate the processes from the standpoint of sustainable development and clean
technology as well as
• to make a clear choice, which technological variant should be preferred because of
its technological, economic, ecological and social characteristics
depending on national economic conditions, regional or local prerequisites, respectively.
The method developed bases on selected characteristics, which are grouped to a minimum program, characterizing the technological process and - if necessary - the aimed main product from
the standpoint of clean technology (see Table I, Figure 1).
The estimation of the characteristics is carried out on the basis of a foregoing system analysis
of the technological variants for the special process. In connection with the preparation of an investment decision only such characteristics of the minimum programme are allowed to be neglected which are not suitable (e.g., if there is no air pollution or water pollution etc.).
50th Purdue Industrial Waste Conference Proceedings, 1995. Ann Arbor Press, Inc., Chelsea, Michigan 48118.
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