Chemical processes provide a vast array of products and materials used in health care, consumer products, transportation, food processing, electronic materials, and construction. Yet, these same chemical processes that provide products essential for modern economies, also generate substantial quantities of wastes and emissions. New approaches to environmental management, that avoid the generation of wastes or pollutants, are variously known as green engineering, environmentally conscious manufacturing, eco-efficient production, or pollution prevention. These approaches to chemical process design can provide design alternatives that are cost effective and result in significant environmental improvements.

A number of green engineering software tools have been developed for chemical process design. This presentation will briefly review those tools and describe how they have been used in chemical engineering curricula.