RE-ENGINEERING THE CHEMICflL PROCESSING PMNT Process Intensification edited by flndrzej ftankiewicz DSM Research Geleen, and Delft University of Technology Delft, The Netherlands Jacob fl. Moulijn Delft University of Technology Delft, The Netherlands Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Although great care has been taken to provide accurate and current information, neither the author(s) nor the publisher,nor anyone else associated with this publication,shall be liable for any loss,damage,or liability directly or indirectly caused or alleged to be caused by this book. The material contained herein is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any specific situation. Trademark notice:Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. 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Synthesis of Porous Materials: Zeolites, Clays, and Nanostructures, edited by Mario L. Occelli and Henri Kessler 70. Methane and Its Derivatives, Sunggyu Lee 71. Structured Catalysts and Reactors, edited by Andrzei Cybulski and Jacob Moulijn 72. lndustrial Gases in P etrochemical Processing, Harold Gunardson 73. Clathrate Hydrates of Natural Gases: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, E. Dendy Sloan, Jr. 74, fluid Cracking Catalysts, edited by Mario L. Occelli and Paul O’Connor 75 Catalysis of Organic Reactions, edited by Frank E. Herkes I 76, The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded, James G. Speight 77. Synthetic Lubricants and High-P erformance functional Fluids, Second Edition: Revised and Expanded, Leslie R. Rudnick and Ronald L. Shubkin Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 78. The Desulfurization of Heavy Oils and Residua, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, James G. Speight 79. Reaction Kinetics and Reactor Design: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, John B. Butt 80. Regulatory Chemicals Handbook, Jennifer M. Spero, Bella Devito, and Louis Theodore 8 1. Applied Parameter Esfimation for Chemical Engineers, Peter Englezos and Nicolas Kalogerakis 82. Catalysis of Organic Reacfions, edited by Michael E. Ford 83. The Chemical Process Industries Infrastructure: Function and Eco- nomics, James R. Couper, 0. Thomas Beasley, and W. Roy Penney 84. Transport Phenomena Fundamentals, Joel L. Plawsky 85. Petroleum Refining Processes, James G. Speight and Baki Ozum 86. Health, Safety, and Accident Management in the Chemical Process Industries, Ann Marie Flynn and Louis Theodore 87. Plantwide Dynamic Simulators in Chemical Processing and Clonfrol, William L. Luyben 88. Chemicial Reactor Design, Peter Harriott 89. Catalysis of Organic Reactions, edited by Dennis Morrell 90. Lubricant Additives: Chemistry and Applications, edited by Leslie R. Rudnick 91. Handbook of Fluidization and Fluid-Particle Systems, edited by Wen- ching Yang 92. Conservation Equations and Modeling of Chemical and Biochemical Processes, Said S. E. H. Elnashaie and Parag Garhyan 93. Batch Fermentation: Modeling, Monitoring, and Control, Ali Cinar, Sa- tish J. Parulekar, Cenk Undey, and Gulnur Birol 94. lndustrial Solvents Handbook: Second Edition, Nicholas P. Cheremis- inoff 95. Petroleum and Gas Field Processing, H. K. Abdel-Aal, Mohamed Aggour, and M. A. Fahim 96. Chemical Process Engineering: Design and Economics, Harry Sit la 97. Process Engineering Economics, James R. Couper 98. Re-Engineering the Chemical Processing Plant: Process lntensifica- tion, Andrzej Stankiewicz and Jacob A. Moulijn 99. Thermodynamic Cycles: Computer-Aided Design and Optimization, Chih Wu ADDITIONAL VOLUMES IN PREPARATION Handbook of Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether, edited by S. Halim Harriid and Mohammad Ashraf Ali Catalytic Naphtha Reforming, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, edited by George J. Antos and Abdullah M. Aitani Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Preface The book you are about to read will introduce you to modern ways of re- engineering the chemical processing plant by means of Process Intensification (PI). The story behind this book had begun with the paper Process Intensification: Transforming Chemical Engineering,which we published in the millennium issue of Chemical Engineering Progress (January 2000). After a pretty enthusiastic response to our paper by the chemical engineering community, Marcel Dekker proposed to us writing a book on that subject. After some discussions we came to the conclusion that it was not a good idea to write the entire book ourselves because,as you will see next,Process Intensification is a very broad discipline and includes many diverse expertise fields. So, instead of writing all chapters on our own, we have invited a number of prominent experts in various areas of Process Intensification,both from industry and from academia,to contribute to what now has become the world’s first book on that subject. The principal aim of this highly practice-oriented book is to illustrate the current developments and the frontline research in the area of Process Intensification. The book is primarily intended for engineers, technologists and researchers in chemical, biochemical and engineering companies, who are involved in process design and development and are interested in learning more about equipment and techniques that may bring quantum-leap improvements to their technologies. Also for others working in the forefront of process design and Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. development it is intended to be inspiring, in particular for the chemical engi- neering community in the universities and the National Laboratories. We hope that it will contribute to a better image of the chemical industry and even play a role in attracting more high-quality, motivated students to the discipline. The book may also be beneficial to R&D managerial personnel who wish to have a broader understanding of the principles and methodology of Process Intensification and gain the up-to-date knowledge of the emerging novel equip- ment and processing methods that could help to achieve technological break- throughs in the processes at their companies. The book has a certain logical structure that can be inferred from scanning the individual chapter headings. Chapter 1 introduces the reader into the genesis, philosophy and principles of Process Intensification and discusses its dimension and structure. It provides general information on process-intensifying equipment and methods and gives some examples of their application on the commercial scale. The three subsequent chapters describe selected types of the PI-equipment. Most of that equipment have already been successfully implemented on the com- mercial scale or is ready for implementation. Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to the rotating equipment,rotating packed bedsandspinning disk reactors,in which the use of high gravity fields leads to spectacular miniaturization of the processing units. Chapter 4 in turn describes the technology,design and application of com- pact and multifunctional heat exchangers. The next three chapters show how bringing certain structures in various scales of chemical processing environment can boost process efficiency, by dramatically improving mixing, heat and mass transfer. Various types and scales of such structuring are presented:microreactors in Chapter 5, large-scale structured catalysts and reactors in Chapter 6 and inline mixing equipment in Chapter 7. Following that “hardware” part of the book,its next four chapters focus on some important methodsthat can be used for intensification of chemical processes. Chapter 8 presents the application aspects of functional integration of reaction and separation into reactive separationsys- tems,or integration of different separative techniques into hybrid separations. In Chapter 9 the modeling issues of the reactive separation systems are discussed. Chapter 10 discusses some aspects of the integration of reaction and heat transfer in multifunctional reactors, while Chapter 11 focuses on the application of pro- cess synthesisprinciples to the optimal design of integrated chemical processing plants. The final three chapters of the book address more general issues of Pro- cess Intensification. Chapter 12, based on the experiences within DSM, shows how the PI-principles can be applied in the industrial environment for re- designing and development of process-intensive chemical plants,while Chapters 13 and 14 focus respectively on safety and sustainability aspects of PI. The chemical industry skyline in the 21st Century is changing. New highly efficient devices have already begun replacing the tens-of-meters high reactors and separation columns. In the still denser populated world inhabited by the still more Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. educated and environment-conscious society,there will be no room (literally and figuratively) for the huge, inefficient chemical factories of today, generating tens of tons of waste per each ton of the useful product. As a part of the society-driven changes miniaturization and,in general,intensification of chemical and biochem- ical plants,will become inevitable. Weare well aware that the present book does not cover alldevelopments in the field of Process Intensification. It has not had such ambitions. With this col- lection of contributions by the leading experts in the field,we have tried to focus on the main developments and main issues only, hoping that they will give the reader sufficient flavor of PI and will encourage him/her to further studies on how to re-engineer a chemical processing plant basing on the “smaller-cheaper-safer- slicker” principles of Process Intensification. Both contributors and editors will be very glad to hear from the reader if we indeed have succeeded. Also sugges- tions for a possible next edition are welcome! Andrzej Stankiewicz Jacob A. Moulijn Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Contents Preface Contributors 1. Process Intensification:History,Philosophy,Principles Andrzej Stankiewicz and A. A. H. Drinkenburg 2. Chemical Processing in High-Gravity Fields David L. Trent 3. The Spinning Disc Reactor C. Ramshaw 4. Compact Multifunctional Heat Exchangers:A Pathway to Process Intensification B. Thonon and P. Tochon 5. Process Intensification Through Microreaction Technology Wolfgang Ehrfeld 6. Structured Catalysts and Reactors:A Contribution to Process Intensification Jacob A. Moulijn,Freek Kapteijn,and Andrzej Stankiewicz Copyright © 2004 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved.