Raw / process material Product output Emitted pollutant

Pollution Prevention: Mass-Balance Simulator (2D)

This 2D counterpart runs the same pollutant mass-balance accounting as the 3D version, but puts two industrial-process flow diagrams side by side so the pollution-prevention hierarchy can be compared directly. Both processes start from the same baseline generation rate — the pollutant budget a fully uncontrolled process would produce. Strategy A, source reduction, cuts that generation rate itself through process substitution, so less pollutant ever exists to escape. Strategy B, end-of-pipe treatment, leaves generation untouched but routes the full stream through a treatment unit with a realistic, always-below-100% removal efficiency. Particle-flow animation along each diagram is scaled to the real computed flux — raw material in, product out, and pollutant up the stack — while a live line chart integrates emitted mass over time for both strategies, making it possible to verify numerically that reducing pollution at the source outperforms treating it after the fact whenever the treatment efficiency is realistically imperfect.