화학공학소재연구정보센터
Korean Industrial Chemistry News, Vol.25, No.2, 34-39, April, 2022
[기획특집: 탄소중립 정책과 기술] 기후위기 극복을 위한 화학산업 분야 탄소중립 엔지니어링에 대한 제언
Basic Concept of Carbon Neutral Engineering in the Chemical Industry to Overcome the Climate Crisis
Climate crisis appears to be a reality, and carbon neutrality is the goal of the times. The world must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. For this, the world order is changing rapidly, and governments continue to declare carbon neutrality. Carbon neutrality is a huge and comprehensive paradigm change including the transformation of carbon-based civilization and a socio-economic system. To overcome these difficulties, technological innovation must precede. It will be achieved by dismantling and reconstructing the engineering system in a distinctive way. Meanwhile, traditional chemical industry relies almost entirely on fossil fuels for materials and energy. Because of this inherent characteristic, the chemical industry is one of the industries that emit enormous greenhouse gases, and must be reconstructed to minimize its emission. Carbon neutral engineering proposed in this article is an engineering system that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the productivity of existing engineering system. It consists of five directions: (1) conversion of feed, (2) conversion of energy, (3) conversion of process, (4) conversion to a circular economy, and (5) carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS). Taking the chemical industry as an example, the concept and specific direction of carbon neutral engineering were explained and discussed.