Process Integration and Intensification

Learning Outcomes

Disciplinary Specific Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply and analyse the concepts of Process Intensification to batch and continuous processes.
• Assess the impact of PI on the sustainability (environmental, social, economic) of a process and understand and analyse how processes interact with the environment throughout their lifecycle.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• The benefits of process integration in the chemical process industries.
• Strategies for the application of process intensification in equipment design .
• The different strategies for the application of process intensification in equipment design and how these can be applied to determine equipment size and optimise performance.

Cognitive Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Implement and validate Process Intensification, along with relevant safety and sustainable processing considerations.

Process Integration: pinch technology, heat integration and network design, composite curves, effectiveness factor, mass exchange networks

Theory of Process Intensification: process intensification (PI) applications and the benefits of PI; PI equipment and the PI toolbox; techniques for PI application.

Process Intensification through micro-reaction technology: effect of miniaturization on unit operations, reactions, and design rules; implementation of micro-reaction technology; microfabrication of reaction and unit operation devices; mixing including scales of mixing, flow patterns in reactors, mixing in stirred tanks, and heat transfer; mixing equipment including atomizers, nebulizers, injectors, impinging jets, rotor stator mixers, and Higee reactors.

Combined chemical reactor heat exchangers and reactor separators: principles of operation; reactive absorption, reactive distillation, and reactive extraction; compact heat exchangers and their selection; integrated heat exchangers in separation processes.

Enhanced fields: energy based intensifications including sono-chemistry, cavitation reactors, and sonocrystallization.

Electrochemical reactors: electrochemistry with special emphasis on electrode kinetics, thermodynamics and structure of the electrode electrolyte interface, measurement techniques involving controlled potential and current methods; design of electrochemical reactors for synthesis.

Role of process intensification as a preventative environmental strategy to reduce material and energy resources and minimise waste

Selection and specification of emerging technologies, intensified reactors and separation processes for application in the environmental and sustainable chemical engineering discipline

Teaching will be done with a combination of formal lectures and problem-solving sessions .

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.