Development of the US EPA's metal finishing facility pollution prevention tool

Abstract Metal Finishing processes are a type of chemical processes and can be modeled using Computer Aided Process Engineering (CAPE). Currently, the United States Environmental Protection Agency is developing the Metal Finishing Facility Pollution Prevention Tool (MFFP2T), a pollution prevention software tool for the metal finishing industry. CAPE is the central component of MFFP2T, and the CAPE-OPEN standards were used in MFFP2T development. MFFP2T development is expanding the application of CAPE-OPEN standards beyond the chemical industry to the metal finishing industry. It has a CAPE-OPEN compliant simulation executive to carry out simulations of user-constructed metal finishing processes, and it includes a graphical user interface (GUI) enabling users to build simulations of unique metal finishing processes that closely represent their own metal plating lines. MFFP2T provides only CAPE-OPEN compliant components. Included in MFFP2T is a Thermodynamic Material Object and Property Package to conduct thermodynamic calculations, such as estimation of thermodynamic properties of materials used in the metal plating process, and chemical equilibrium calculations. MFFP2T includes Unit Operations specific to the metal plating industry, both the basic operations ( e.g. Alkaline Cleaning, Vapor Degreaser, Cr +6 Plating) and pollution control operations ( e.g. Microfiltration, Ion Exchange, Reverse Osmosis). Many of the modules produced are expected to have immediate application in the chemical industry. MFFP2T utilizes the EPA's Waste Reduction (WAR) Algorithm Package to determine the potential environmental impact of materials used in the plating process. All components are developed using the CAPE-OPEN Component Object Module (COM) interface defintion language (IDL), and have passed CAPE-OPEN tests available through the CAPE-OPEN Laboratories Network(CO-LaN).