Design and Integration of Chemical Process

Design and integration of chemical process is the step required to convert laboratory process into industrial scale. It calculates the requirement of mass of raw materials and products, energy, fabrication materials and auxiliaries such as pumps, motors, electricity, heaters, boilers etc. On the other hand, in laboratory environment, a chemical reaction is developed based only on reaction success in glass beakers and final yield without much consideration to its cost of production. Therefore, when that reaction is transferred to large industrial scale for bulk production, several other aspects are also considered. Among these aspects or parameters, the first and the most important parameter is mass balance and process type i.e. batch or continuous production. It tells us about the requirement of each raw material required for the process, its cost, and supply source. Then, the total energy requirement is calculated, it includes determination of energy released or absorbed during each step of the reaction, and how it can be provided. Sometimes, energy from an exothermic reaction step is extracted by heat exchangers and used in another energy deficient reaction step. Once mass and energy requirements are calculated, then process design considerations are determined. It includes resident time of reactants and products in each step, its physical condition, and type of material required for fabrication of reaction vessels and pipes. This entire process is iterative in nature therefore, performed several times to obtain the most optimized process design parameters. Furthermore, each of the above-mentioned steps are specialization in itself and requires utmost attention to details. Therefore, in this book several researches related to different approaches of design and integration of chemical process are included.