PNNL

Abstract

Summary: A perspective on numbering up chemical facilities for distributed processing of waste carbon and for making reagents “just-in-time”. Chemical processing plants that can be numbered up by installing and operating many replicate facilities are well suited for the conversion of geographically distributed sources of renewable or waste carbon into fuels or chemicals. Examples from the manufacture of chemicals and the installation of flue gas treatment technology suggest that the relative cost diminution should correlate through a power law (Cost/Cost1 ?E–a) with E, a measure of the experience of operating those facilities and/or the number of units that are mass manufactured and installed. The exponent, a, can be related to the complexity of the process and the characteristics of the products.