Sustainability assessment to guide the development of new technologies: acetic acid from captured CO 2 case study

Current efforts to decarbonize the chemical industry focus on the substitution of current fossil-based inputs with renewable energy and feedstocks. However, despite the clear advantage in terms of curbing carbon emissions, these changes usually lead to environmental collateral damage and high production costs. Given this situation, alternative synthesis routes could play a key role in the transition toward a more sustainable chemical industry by reducing energy and feedstock demand due to more efficient reaction pathways.In this work, we study the economic and environmental performance of alternative acetic acid synthesis routes Our results confirm that these routes have the potential to outperform the business as usual ( pathway, both economically and environmentally under specific feedstock scenarios, setting the path toward the future of acetic acid synthesis and, beyond that, a more sustainable chemical industry