CONTEXT: SPECIALTY CHEMICALS The chemical industries manufacture a - PDF document

CONTEXT: SPECIALTY CHEMICALS The chemical industries manufacture a wide spectrum of products: Sulphuric Acid ¸ Ô Ethylene Ô sell for a few Commodities: Benzene cents a kilo ˝ Ô Ethanol Ô Acetic Anhydride ˛ $20- 40 / kg Engineering Plastics ¸ Ô to Specialties: Photographic Dyes ˝ $1billion / kg Ô Pharmaceuticals ˛ (Factor VIII) Commodities Specialties Undifferentiated Differentiated Low Price High Price Large Volume Small Volume Long Product Life Short Product Life Continuous Dedicated Multi-Product Batch Plant Plant Acetic Acid Lucretex 2

PRICE VS ANNUAL PRODUCTION 10 9 $/kg 100 10 1 0.1 10 1 10 World Production (kg/year) 3

SPECIALTY CHEMICAL MANUFACTURING raw materials (commodities) BULK SYNTHESIS AND PURIFICATION reagents • organic chemistry wastes solvents • several synthetic steps • solvent based catalysts • separations: distillation, extraction, crystallization, drying, filtration energy active ingredients (large molecules, crystals) fillers FORMULATION INTO DELIVERY surfactants DEVICE solvents wastes colour, flavour, • typically physical operations fragrance • blending, milling, compaction, formation of emulsions/dispersions energy final product to consumer • tablets • solution • dispersion/emulsion • slurry 4

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW PRODUCT Chemists in the research lab New Lubricant have been trying solve Doesn't degrade as fast problems with degradation More expensive to make of a lubricant Lasts three times as long as current lubricant Market Study - who needs Small market it? If it can be sold for 10 Airlines times as much - lead to Military good profit margins Performance tests Good results in viscometer at many different shear rates Decision to test market Large scale manufacture product - how long, at what cost? Engineering team design Process feasible campaign Test manufacturing Product a success campaign Profit margins attractive Long term manufacture Use data from test campaign 5

PROBLEM: BATCH PROCESS DEVELOPMENT Scenario: a) Manufacture X kilos of a new product - scale-up of experimental procedure. b) Use existing equipment in multi-purpose batch plant. Questions: What unit operations to use? What solvents, reagents, catalysts? How does experimental procedure scale? How much will it cost? How soon can we have it? What materials of construction are required? What are the safety and environmental issues? How much will it cost on a larger scale (long term manufacture)? Custom manufacturers do this task on a contract basis. Process synthesis/design/operation problem. 6