We developed a conceptual process design for cellulose nanocrystals production, based on target CNC production of 1 ton/day using continuous sulfuric acid hydrolysis of bleached softwood Kraft pulp. In our design, we adopted the hydrolysis conditions published for labscale CNC production, since Hamad reported that the proper hydrolysis conditions fall into a narrow window and the optimization opportunity is not significant. Vanderfleet et al. also reviewed that hydrolysis conditions does not significantly vary from the lab scale to the commercial scale , and more optimization space for commercial CNC production fall in the design of membrane filtration system for CNC purification and spray drying; these two process steps became the focus of our process design. The process design is complemented by sulfuric acid recycling, since recycling vs not recycling would necessarily have a large consequence on environmental impacts of the overall production process. The simulated design is integrated with the LCA software to calculate process environmental impacts and to identify environmental hot spots. We have considered the initial plant location to be Quebec, Canada, since currently this is the site of a CNC production plant by CelluForce Inc.