Introduction - Principles of Chemical Separations with Environmental Applications - page 2

Table 1.1 US Environmental Industry segments [2].

Services Resources Equipment

Consulting and Engineering Water Utilities Water Equipment and Chemical

Waste Management Energy Sources and Instruments and Information Systems

Solid waste

Recovery Air Pollution Control Equipment

Hazardous waste

Resource Recovery Waste Management Equipment

Water

Process and Prevention Technology

Remediation
Industrial Services
Analytical Services

This material is used by permission of Environmental Business International, Inc.

Table 1.2 The Environmental Industry in the United States in 1992 [4].

Sector Approximate size Approximate growth

Engineering and Consulting $ 12 billion 15% over 10 years

Water Supply and Treatment $ 30 billion 5%

Air Quality $ 6 billion 15%

Equipment/New Technology $ 11 billion N/A

The report further concludes, “In the future, separation processes will be critical for
environmental remediation and protection.”
Chemical separations are used to reduce the quantity of potentially toxic or hazardous
materials discharged to the environment. In addition, separations that lead to recovery,
recycle, or reuse of materials also prevent discharge.
The US Environmental Industry is made up of many segments. Table 1.1 lists the major
segments and their chief components [2]. It is apparent that chemical separations play a
large role in each of these areas. In addition, processes to separate and purify chemicals
consume over 10 15 BTU of energy (BTU 055 joules) alone in the United States each

year. They directly or indirectly generate considerable emissions, which pose challenges
that will require new processing approaches [3].
The Environmental Industry in the US is large and projected to grow at a substantial rate.
Table 1.2 provides some data related to environmental applications of separations. Even
if the projections are “overly enthusiastic,” it is clear that this is an important technology
area and will continue to grow.

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1.3 Background

The topic of the material in this text is chemical separations with environmental appli-
cations. Separation processes are any set of operations that separate solutions of two or