Selection of fractionation pathways and intermediates for mixed consumer products

Mixed consumers products, such as cosmetics and foods, normally consist of a mixture of intermediates. Most of these intermediates are currently produced by fractionation, a rather complex process where multiple intermediates are obtained from a single raw material, often focused on high purity. These intermediates can subsequently be combined to satisfy demand and quality requirements. The chemical purity of intermediates is, however, not always necessary, and mild fractionation of raw materials is often sufficient. Therefore, we propose an optimization-based decision support framework to select cost-efficient fractionation pathways and intermediates. We illustrate our approach for the processing of lupin seeds and yellow peas, and investigate mild fractionation as a more resource-efficient way of producing intermediates for mixed consumer products. The results show that, if only few intermediates are used, high purity is needed to comply with the quality requirements of a broad range of final applications. If more intermediates can be used, mildly refined intermediates can be selected to cover the demand of a part of the products with resource savings. In our illustrative case, using eight instead of four intermediates leads to water and energy reduction of about 29 % and 28 %, respectively. In general, our results indicate that using fractionation pathways leading to intermediates with lower purity provides opportunities for more resource-efficient production, and similar opportunities are expected to exist in integrated product and process design for other mixed consumer products.