THERMODYNAMIC PECULIARITY OF WAST GENERATION IN CHEMICAL AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

This study analyzes the thermodynamic and chemical mechanisms underlying the formation of industrial waste, focusing on their dependence on the balance between chemical and thermodynamic equilibrium in technologies associated with chemical production. The distinction between the “conceptual” and “practical” completeness of chemical reactions is clarified: the former relates to waste generated under chemically nonequilibrium conditions, whereas the latter refers to by-products inherently formed as part of the reactions themselves. Within the temporal interpretation of the reaction preference coefficient Kpref , the study demonstrates the potential for thermodynamic interactions among primary reactants, intermediate products, and components that constitute the initial environment of waste formation. It is established that the irreversibility of a chemical reaction under conditions of positive entropy production shifts the process toward the formation of by-products, i.e., industrial waste. Even at chemical equilibrium, the system may remain thermodynamically disordered, which limits its capacity to minimize waste generation. The results show that the potential for reducing waste is primarily governed by the energetic characteristics of the process: the presence of additional energy of appropriate quality can significantly influence the structure of material flows. For specific reaction systems, waste minimization becomes feasible when the ratio between baseline and additional energy satisfies the condition Ew0 ≤ 0,62E0 . Consequently, the control of energy fluxes within the reaction system is a key prerequisite for reducing the scale of industrial chemical waste. Using thermocatalytic ammonia decomposition for molecular hydrogen production as an illustrative example, the study demonstrates that residual amounts of ammonia characteristic of cracking and chemical processing can be efficiently converted when supplementary energy is introduced into the system. Thus, the integration of chemical and thermodynamic approaches in the design of chemical technological processes creates new opportunities for minimizing specific categories of industrial waste.