Process design within planetary boundaries: Application to CO2 based methanol production

Designing sustainable processes is gaining momentum in the chemical engineering community. Conventional life cycle assessment approaches often employed to assess sustainability level of can be used compare alternatives. However, because they lack clear quantitative thresholds above which a process should deemed unsustainable, insight provided into whether technology truly absolute terms limited. This work covers this gap by incorporating criteria design using planetary boundaries concept, defines ecological limits on critical Earth systems. Our method, integrating simulation, surrogate modeling, and recent characterization method compute impact boundaries, applied methanol production from hydrogen CO2. results show that fossil-based improved substantially adequately selecting source. The new approach unfolds avenues for including design.