Process Intensification

Breakthrough in Design, Industrial Innovation Practices, and Education

Jan Harmsen, Maarten Verkerk

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9783110657524
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias físicas
• Subtopic: Ciencia medioambiental

Process Intensification is a comprehensive textbook and treats the theory of process intensification design, and all innovation steps from idea generation to commercial implementation, and all focused on contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book covers the 'hard' elements of design, modelling, and experimental validations and the 'soft' elements, values of engineers, interests of stakeholders and beliefs of society.

1 Introduction

1.1 Objectives of this book

The objectives of this book are threefold. The first objective is to provide engineers in the process industries design, methods for process intensification in combination with stage-gate innovation steps that include modeling and experimental validation, so that in the end, radically improved processes are implemented.

The second objective is to provide managers in the process industries, a practice perspective to understand the different cultures of research & development (R&D), operations (OPS), manufacturing, and marketing & sales (M&S). These practice perspectives support managers to facilitate cooperation between these different departments, so that these radical process innovation projects become commercial-scale successes – as they are accepted by the internal and the external stakeholders, and strongly contribute to the realization of the sustainable development goals [1]. The book is not only for large companies but also for start-up companies. To that end, it contains a start-up company case describing all hurdles and how they were overcome.

The third objective is to provide implemented industrial cases from various process industries, notably from chemicals, food, pharma and biofuels, and exercises for process engineering education programs such as in chemical engineering, food processing, pharmaceuticals, and minerals processing, so that the book can be used as a textbook for academic and industrial training.

The book is therefore not just a description of process intensification theory, but also about process innovation. It is action-oriented, from idea to commercial-scale implementation. Or, in other words, it is not just descriptive, but prescriptive.

1.2 Setup of this book

This book has the following setup:

• Section A describes the theory of process intensification design and process innovation practices. Chapter 2 describes process intensification design theory. It presents an introduction to process intensification and its different design domains. Chapter 3 discusses the importance of each sustainable development goal for process innovation. Chapter 4 offers the VIB method: the three different perspectives in understanding industrial innovation practices – “V” stands for values of engineers, “I” for interests of stakeholders, and “B” for beliefs in society. Chapter 5 offers a description for multidisciplinary assessments for stage-gates.
• Section B presents an application of the provided theory for the stage-gate innovation trajectory. It offers guidelines and methods for every stage. Chapter 6: the discovery stage, Chapter 7: the concept stage, Chapter 8: feasibility stage, Chapter 9: the development stage, Chapter 10: the engineering procurement and construction stage, and Chapter 11: the implementation stage.
• Section C offers five descriptions of industrial process intensification cases. These cases are structured in agreement with the theories presented in Part A and B. Chapter 12 presents a summary of the industrial case studies. All contain complete descriptions from idea generation to final commercial-scale implementation. Chapter 13 describes the BTG-BTL biomass to liquid fuels case. It is about modular design and prefab construction. Chapter 14 is devoted to the bulk chemicals Eastman methyl acetate multifunctional integration case with explicit function integration design and modeling aspects. Chapter 15 is about the Shell OMEGA Only Monoethylene Glycol Advanced process, applying a plant-wide process-intensified design approach. Chapter 16 is about intensified ethanol production by cyclic distillation. Chapter 17 presents a process-intensified pharmaceuticals case.
• Part D is about education of engineers, both academic and industries. Chapter 18 describes BSc education in process intensification design. Chapter 19 describes industrial education of process-intensified innovation.

1.3 Wording

This book uses several general wordings to keep the style simple and easy to read. For instance, it uses the word “engineers” for all employees working in R&D departments in industries. In nearly all cases, it uses “he” where “she” could also have been stated. It uses one type of name for the innovation stages, although different industry branches use different names for stages and small companies often have no formal innovation stages.

Reference

[1]United Nations, Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development, 2015. →

Part A: Theory

2 Process intensification design

Abstract

This chapter focuses on process-intensified design methods. Furthermore, it clarifies the differences between conventional process design based on established predefined unit operations and design based on process-intensified principles.

Process intensification (PI) design methods are not only suited for new processes but also for retrofitting and revamping existing processes. Special attention is paid to this subject and opportunities to apply PI are shown.

PI is a set of radically innovative process-design principles which can bring significant benefits in terms of efficiency, cost, product quality, safety, and health over conventional process designs, when compared with designs based on established unit operations.

All PI design methods can be classified into five domains: spatial plant-wide, functional synergy, temporal, thermodynamic, and spatial equipment. For each domain, guiding design principles as also a selection of established process-intensified technologies are described. The selection is limited to technologies for which all necessary concept design information is available.

2.1 Overview of process intensification design

2.1.1 Definition of process intensification design

Process intensification (PI) is a totally new way of designing processes. It can be considered as a radical change in the history of process design, similar to the radical change induced by the introduction of unit operations by Arthur D. Little in 1916, to process design. That introduction was then seen as the beginning of chemical engineering as a specific discipline [1].

Prior to the introduction of unit operations, process designs were specific for the materials to be processed, so there were sugar process technology, coal process technology, oil refinery technology, and so on. After the introduction of unit operations, generic knowledge and design methods were developed for each unit, placed in Perry’s Chemical Engineer’s Handbook [2] and so became a common practice for process design, regardless of the specific industry branch. That handbook was regularly updated to include new operations and improved design methods. In the eighties, computer program modules became available for most unit operations, further advancing process design based on unit operations.

A unit operation is a basic step in a process defined by physical, chemical, or biochemical changes and governed by a set of design methods which are applicable to all materials to be processed, for which the physical and chemical properties are known. Very complex and large process designs can be easily made by combining these unit operations. First, the whole process can be designed with unit operation blocks connected by streams. For each unit operation, specialists can make the unit operation design, in detail. In this way, process designs can be made quickly and reliably. This process-design method has become the prevailing design method not only for chemical processes, but also for most other processes such as food and minerals processes.

PI design is breaking away from unit operations design. Keil discusses various PI definitions in his magnificent review article and concludes with the European Roadmap of PI definition for Process Intensification: “Process Intensification is a set of often radically innovative principles (“paradigm shift”) in process and equipment design, which can bring significant (more than factor 2) benefits in terms of process and chain efficiency, capital and operating expenses, quality, wastes, and process safety” [3]. The same definition appears in the latest textbook on PI [4].

The remarkable thing is that this definition, as with all other PI definitions reported by Keil, does not specify upon which subject the benefits are made, or on what existing paradigm the shift is made. The most obvious existing paradigm from which PI shifts away, but is not explicitly stated is, of course, that of process-design based on unit operations.

With this insight, we refine the definition of PI as follows:

Process intensification is a set of radically innovative process-design principles which can bring significant benefits in terms of efficiency, cost, product quality, safety and health over conventional process-designs based on unit operations.

Reduction in size can also be a benefit of PI, for instance, when it concerns a retrofit of an...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Introduction
• Part A: Theory
• Part B: Application of theory: guidelines and methods
• Part C: Industrial practice cases
• Part D: Educating PI – academic and industrial
• Index