Process Engineering Renewal 3

Prospects

Eric Schaer, Jean-Claude Andre

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781786305572
• eBook ISBN: 9781119751250
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Chemical & Biochemical Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Process engineering emerged at the beginning of the 20th Century and has become an essential scientific discipline for the matter and energy processing industries. Its success is incontrovertible, with the exponential increase in techniques and innovations. Rapid advances in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, as well as current societal needs – sustainable development, climate change, renewable energy, the environment – are developments that must be taken into account in industrial renewal. Process Engineering Renewal 3 presents a prospective analysis that demonstrates the significant disruptions linked to sustainable development, global warming, etc. These constraints may trigger changes in the social regulation system, which in turn applies pressure on actors of process engineering to evolve and adapt to these developments.

1
Between Innovation in Process Engineering and Creativity

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing. (Orwell 1949)

Creation consists of both shaping a substance and giving substance to a form. (Rappoport cited in van der Leuw 1994)

To invent something new, we determine the necessary scientific level and arrive at fundamental research to find a solution to a technical problem. (Gille 1978)

Technology does not form an independent system like the Universe; it exists only as part of human culture. (Mumford 2010)

The development of technological changes [is] like a succession of fairly diffuse periods of acceleration, rather than a sequence of discrete moments of inventive insight. This trend becomes all the more marked if we move from the process of invention to the process or processes of innovation development, i.e. to those in which a technological innovation is brought to the state of a workable prototype. (Fox 1994)

The development of the curriculum in chemical engineering has benefited in the past from the tension between, on the one hand, imparting to the students a good understanding of the sciences underpinning our discipline and, on the other, the perceived need to help aspiring engineers to develop and enhance the skills necessary to practice as an effective professional. (Perkins 2002)

One of the difficulties of the creative process is to fine-tune the times of divergence and convergence, to nourish the process, to open them up and reopen them permanently, to give ideas time to mature, while ensuring that the project succeeds, which implies making choices among the proposals that have emerged. (Paris 2010)

The center of gravity of existence shifts towards the future and at the same time modifies the relationship to the present. (Meyer quoted by Hottois 2018)

Creative thinking is one of the main keys to success in a globalized economy, which is essential ‘to meet the challenges facing Europe’. Creativity is presented as ‘the engine of innovation and the essential factor for the development of personal, professional, entrepreneurial and social skills and the well-being of all individuals in society’. (EU 2008)

It is no longer the Man of Genius who discovers something […], it is precisely this anonymous addition of the conditions of the leap forward. When all the conditions are met, there is only a minimal intervention by a Man that produces significant progress. (Ellul 2008)

The philosophical chemist of 70 years ago was a creator quite disconcerted by his creations. The other chemists, the hard practitioners, were mechanics in their laboratory procedures. In a sense, they put atoms together in a test tube – so to speak – and waited to see what would happen. (Malisoff 1941)

The more a commercial company gets media coverage, the more it must devote a significant part of its activity to the production of demand, by investing ever greater resources in attention-grabbing devices. (Citton 2014)

Science is what the father teaches his son. Technology is what a son teaches his father. (Serres cited from Brabandère 2017b)

The more perfect the technical organization that surrounds Man, the more it must be reduced to a succession of simple functions. (Jüngers 2018)

NOTE.– This chapter, applicable to fields other than process engineering (PE), introduces a number of concepts, or more simply reminders of certain concepts, that will be used during the book. The reader, who has mastered the aspects of progress, creativity, innovation, convergence, interdisciplinarity, boundary object, etc., can engage in reading the chapters more specifically dedicated to the theme of the book.

Dissimilar from the notion of progress, the notion of change has emerged over the past 30 years as a positive and irreplaceable value. Although the notion of change is already old, it is as an ideology that it is imposed today, strongly linked to the context of immediacy, of creation, if at all possible, of a network on which the so-called knowledge economy is based. The idea of permanent change seems to have become a new paradigm. It is obvious that the current overexponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) associated with more than heavy trends (climate change, overpopulation, etc.) is the subject of attention for many authors (see chapters devoted to the prospective part and AI).

From a technological point of view, what emerges from these two chapters are developing fields such as artificial intelligence, information and communication technologies, quantum computing, augmented reality, transhumanism, synthetic biology, intelligent materials with a pinch of energies and “sensitive” materials. The use of basic technologies (such as energy, processes) is relegated to the sustainable development aspects, at best. Everything therefore seems conceivable in a dream (or nightmare) world, without taking into account the possible, with one problem to deal with, however; it is a society that will see its jobs lost, its qualifications lost, but let us not doubt it, with the opportunity to participate in a great adventure! (see, for example, Al-Khalili 2018).

Among the slogans associated with the future of our consumerist society, we could have found expressions such as: “Data is the new oil”; “Artificial intelligence is the new electricity” and “Internet of Things is the new nervous system”; “Technology is exponential”, etc. (Leonhard 2018). Everything is possible: “We just need to agree on what we want.” There are only social and some environmental reserves for the future that prepares us for transhumanism, augmented humankind, and digital immortality. Affluence is allowed especially if you have some ideas, if possible, disruptive. Fortunately, some have a position closer to reality and rely on knowledge of reality and what is possible to make realistic forecasts (even if they remain deeply technological). But, between the inertia of traditional processes and the explosion of digital technologies, there is undoubtedly a need to define areas of innovation that could make a link between “tradition and modernity” in the context of control, under constraint, of the transformation of matter and energy.

“What is the point of supporting innovation if it is to maintain divides? If we do nothing, we are heading towards a world where robotic lifestyle enthusiasts and those who take refuge in Corrèze, to escape Big Brother, will definitely move away. The future is written too quickly, technology remains without utopia while we all aspire to live as humans in the world that is coming. We are all concerned” (Pène 2018). Indeed, the disruptions brought about by the confluence of all new technologies are transforming the production and distribution of goods and services. This situation should be reflected in the skills of future workers, the employment or even the disappearance of traditional labor, productivity and the inhomogeneous distribution of income. A radical transformation of business models, skills systems and public policies is therefore to be expected. Overall, with the target being gross domestic product, few people are really concerned about the struggle to reduce CO₂ emissions and develop a greener (and less fossil fuel consuming) economy (Daniel 2018; Mallard 2018).

For Daniel, “the academic background is called upon to play an increasingly less important role, first because its content is constantly shrinking, and second because the imagination that drives innovation, even if it is based on experiences and references, is only partially based on transmitted knowledge. In fact, the current ‘disruption’ must be interpreted as the transition from a hierarchical society where everyone knew their place to a society in motion where everyone will invent their place.”

True or false, however, it seems important in a world that i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Between Innovation in Process Engineering and Creativity
• 2 Prospective Elements Applied to the Transformation of Matter and Energy
• Conclusion
• Index
• End User License Agreement