MODULE 6

PRODUCT MANUFACTURE

Intellectual property, 
Supplying missing information, 
Final specifications,
Micro structured products,
Device manufacture. 
 Introduction

By this point, we are close to a decision on what we will

make and sell.
 Have identified a customer need.
 Have quantified the need in terms of product specifications.
 Have sought a large number of ideas to meet the need.
 Have organized and edited these ideas to reach a manageable
few.
 Have selected the best one or two ideas.
 Close to deciding what we will manufacture.
 Introduction

• Manufacture builds on our background in chemistry and chemical

engineering.

• This includes thermodynamics, chemical reaction kinetics, transport

phenomena, and unit operations.

• Some of this background not central to the manufacture of commodity

chemicals, but important for specialty products:

 Some apply to micro‐structured products

 Some apply to chemical devices, such as artificial kidney.
 Introduction
We will now explore three aspects leading to product manufacture:

 Intellectual property
 Often our new product will include some invention.
 Need to consider whether or not to seek patent protection.
 Patents give exclusive license to market our invention and command higher
prices.
 Choice to make: Patents or trade secrets.

 Finding missing information required to realize our products.

 Information needed to make sure our selected product functions as expected.
 Information needed for any patent applications.
 Need for planning experiments to obtain this information.

 Developing final specifications for the one or two possible products being
considered.
 This development is adaptive, not innovative.
 Intellectual Property

• As product designers, we need to broaden our focus from technology and think of
broader issues.
• We need to reassure ourselves that the market is still existing; customer needs have
not shifted.
• We need to check that our selected product does fit into the markets believed to
exist.
• More important, we need to involve questions about intellectual property – patents.
• Patents prevent our competitors from making the same product.
• Patents can dramatically enhance the advantages of our being first to market.
• Core team may not have much experience in patents – need to talk to lawyers.
 Patents and Trade Secrets
• Intellectual property classified as: Patents and Trade secrets.
• A patent is a contract between the inventor and the government.
• The inventor has to convince the government, represented by the patent office, that
the invention is new.
• Then the government gives the inventor exclusive rights to the invention for some
time.
• In return, the inventor gives the public a full disclosure of what the invention is and
how it works.
• Patents are valuable:
 They grant a period when the inventor can expect higher profits.
 Hence the inventor can easily recover development costs.
 The inventor has a chance of bringing the product first to market and selling it at a
higher price.
 Patents and Trade Secrets

• A patent is a legal property. Just like a house or a car, patents can be owned, bought 
and sold.
• They can be licensed, for fees ~ 3 – 6% of gross sales.
• Moreover, a patent can be international; many developing countries have a patent 
system.
• In contrast to patents, trade secrets are nonpublic information used in manufacture 
of product.
• E.g., a special catalyst, or important steps in activating the catalyst.
• Trade secrets are not legal property; vulnerable in two ways:
 Obviously, trade secrets can be lost with an employee who changes jobs.
 The employee may have developed these secrets or learned them on the job.
 The trade secrets can be lost if our competitor independently discovers the secret 
and patents it.
 The ex‐secret is now the competitor’s property; this is true even if we had been 
using the secret for decades before the competitor discovered it.
Patents and Trade Secrets

Our first decision: whether or not to patent our product.

Benefit of patent: Gives us legal protection.
Pitfalls of patenting:

 Although patents do give legal rights, they can be difficult and expensive to
defend.
 Many patent lawyers acknowledge that only a small fraction of infringement
cases are prosecuted.
 Most infringement cases are settled out of court, usually on confidential terms.
 Another problem is when the patents are broadly sought:
 Consider a drug company working on antidepressants which patents a huge
number of compounds.
 Since each patent includes a full disclosure of the chemistry, the entire set of
patents will provide an accurate record of the company’s expertise and strategy for
discovery; this can easily be exploited by its competitors.
Patents or Trade Secrets? – A Third Way

• Some companies have tried an alternative to patents and trade secrets.

• They do not patent an invention, nor do they keep it a trade secret.

• Instead they present it as a poster at some minor, poorly attended technical

meeting (esp. one that does not publish abstracts).

• They then keep a careful, notarized record of the contents of the poster,
including the trade secrets.

• Chances that a competitor will notice the secret is remote – the secret
essentially remains a secret.

• If a competitor does in the future discover and patent it, the original
discoverer can refer back to the poster presentation.

• Such an earlier disclosure invalidates the patent(s).

 What can be Patented?

Three kinds of patents:
 Utility patents – most important for chemical products; discussed below.
 Design patents – involve ornamental features of an article of manufacture.
 Living plant patents – cover new plants asexually reproduced by the inventors.

• Utility patents are the most common.
• Granted for any useful, new and nonobvious composition of 
matter, article of manufacture, or process.
• Most utility patents are complex documents, expensive to 
prepare.
What can be Patented?

• In US, utility patents have a term of 20 years from the filing date of the
application.

• Hence we want to expedite the application as much as possible, so we

can get additional income from licensing the patent.

• Design patents are granted for 14 years for any new, original, and
nonobvious ornamental design.

• Comparatively simple and inexpensive – some believe that these are

underused in product design and development.

• We will henceforth consider only utility patents.

Requirements for Patents

Two major issues:

 What is patentable?
 How do we document our invention?

For a patent, the product must be:

 Useful
 Novel
 Nonobvious
“Usefulness” requirement is normally easy to satisfy.
 We are not interested in the commercial development of product without
any use.

“Novelty” requirement is harder to prove.

 The product should not have already been patented.
 The product should not have already been described in a printed
publication.
 Requirements for Patents 

• “Nonobvious” requirement means the difference between the new

product and earlier products – “the prior art” – must be not obvious
to one having “ordinary skill in the art to which the invention
pertains”.
• “Nonobvious” requirement clearly introduces substantial uncertainty
in patenting process.
• The US Supreme Court tried to sharpen the “nonobvious”
requirement by urging inquiry into three areas:
 The scope and content of the prior art.
 The differences between the art and the claimed invention
 The level of ordinary skill in the field of the invention.

• Often we need to depend on the judgment of patent attorneys.

Requirements for Patents
• US patent laws divide the inventive process into two steps:
 Conception
 Reduction into practice
• Conception is the formation of a definite idea of the complete invention,
including every feature sought to be patented.
• Conception is complete when one of ordinary skill could practice the
invention without extensive research or experimentation.
• Because conception is mental, courts also require reduction to practice
which is evidence that the invention works.
• Reduction to practice takes two forms:
 Actual – actual reduction requires construction of a device and demonstrating that
it fulfills its intended purpose.
 This is the inventor’s responsibility

 Constructive – constructive reduction is filing a patent application.

 This is the lawyers’ responsibility.
Requirements for Patents

• Patent infringement is different from normal criminal offenses.

• A patent is a legal document, but the enforcement is entirely up to the
owner.
• Normally, if the infringement is unintended, the patent holder is entitled to
payment of a reasonable license fee.
• If it is shown that the infringement was wilful, damages of two to three
times this amount may be awarded.
• E.g. Glaxo‐Wellcome paid U of Minnesota $200 million.
• Two crucial points to remember:
 First, it is complex – imperative that you get assistance of a specialized lawyer.
 Second, intellectual property law has little to do with justice as it is normally
understood; it is just a set of rules.
SUPPLYING MISSING INFORMATION
 Introduction

• We have seen how to make the final selection of our most promising 
idea.
• We used information from
 Available literature
 From external experts
 From back‐of‐the‐envelope calculations

• This information is unlikely to be complete or rigorous.
• In order to embark on an expensive program of product development, we 
need to know more product details.
• Discovering these product details requires further research and 
experimentation
 Introduction

Up to this point we have tried to minimize the work at each 
stage:
 Simplified calculations have been employed.
 Experiment kept to a minimum.
 Literature research used only to establish if something is possible, with 
little attention to how it might be achieved.

This has advantages:
 Streamlines product design
 Allows easy comparison between ideas
 Minimizes time to market

Now, however, detailed information is indispensable:
 We must confirm experimentally any information used already and fill in 
the many gaps in our knowledge.
 Introduction

• Difficult to generalize about what missing information will be 
necessary and how best to obtain it.
• Every project has its own specific problems.
• For different problems, the information will vary enormously, 
depending on:
 Level of literature interest
 Company’s prior activity in this area.

• At the least, we need experimental verification of relevant 
reported data.
• At the other extreme, a full experimental program will be 
necessary to demonstrate viability of the new, untested idea.
 Introduction

• One example: for the design of chemicals, we need the synthetic pathway
for the active molecules.

• By the selection stage, we must have identified the active species and may
well have obtained it in small quantities.

• We need to identify a satisfactory commercial synthesis route.

• This needs to be done before moving on to the manufacturing stage.

• Many of the techniques in chemistry will be valuable.

• These tools will help us decide between the different reaction path
strategies for the active molecule.
 Reaction Path Strategies

• Often, in attacking a product problem, we start to think of possible

molecules required for synthesis.
• We have seen how combinatorial chemistry and natural product screening
can assist in the process of idea generation for active chemical species.
• The molecules thus identified are unlikely to be available readily.
• A natural question: how do we make the molecules?
• One possible way is the “disconnection approach”
 Going backward from the target molecule to simple precursors.
 At each stage, we imagine breaking the structure of the target molecule; this
breakage is the inverse of the synthetic step.
 At each stage we also establish the synthetic method to go in the opposite
direction.
 Reaction Path Strategies

• Usually several different disconnections are possible for any target

molecule.
• This suggests existence of many alternative synthetic routes for
complex molecules.
• An experienced organic chemist will be able to eliminate most of
these as impractical, leaving a handful of reasonable alternatives.
• If none of the potential synthetic routes appear viable?
 The target molecule can be ruled out as a useful idea.
 It may be highly efficacious, but cannot be commercially made.
 Alternatively, it can be extracted from a natural product or made via
fermentation.
Example – Synthesis of the Tranquilizer,
Phenylglycodol
Example – Sterically Hindered Amines for CO2
Removal
Example – Sterically Hindered Amines for CO2 Removal

• CO2 removal from gases is a vital element in

several plants, e.g. hydrogen plants.

• It can often be the bottleneck for capacity

expansion.

• Problem: Can we improve the CO2 removal from

gas streams? How?
Example – Sterically Hindered Amines for CO2 Removal
Conventionally, gas sweetening is done by using amines by the following
reaction:
2RNH2 + CO2  RNH3+ + RNHCOO-

This reaction needs two moles of amine per mole of CO2 removed.
In 1974, a chemist, Guido Sartori, realized that by changing the amine, i.e.,
using a hindered amine, the reaction could be changed:
RNH2 + CO2 + H2O  RNH3+ + HCO3-

Only one mole of amine now required per mole of CO2 absorbed.
This is potentially a great improvement in efficiency.

• The above (diisopropylamine) is an example of a hindered amine.

Example – Sterically Hindered Amines for CO2 Removal
• We do not know which hindered amine to use.
• Our specifications are likely to be:

 The new amine should double the capacity of the old plant or reduce
the size of absorption columns in the new plant.
 The rate of reaction for the hindered amine should be at least as high
as that for the conventional amines.
 We want the retrofit the old plant with our new product; therefore,
operating conditions must be similar to those used currently.
 In an operating plant, a corrosion inhibitor, containing pentavalent
vanadium (V5+), is present in the absorbing liquid. The hindered
amine must be stable in the presence of this inhibitor.

• Sartori and co-workers screened a wide range of possible hindered

amines to see how they met the above criteria.
Example – Sterically Hindered Amines for CO2 Removal

• Sartori’s success:

 He established that hindered amines can indeed react with the 1:1
stoichiometry.
 He showed that highly hindered amines have very low rate constants while
moderately hindered amines have acceptable rate constants.
 This led to the rejection of highly hindered amines in favor of moderately
hindered amines.
 These moderately hindered amines were found to work well for typical
plant operating conditions.
 By alternating the side groups of the hindered amines, the requirements of
solubility and thermal stability could be satisfied.
 Finally, the moderately hindered amines were found to be stable in the
presence on the V5+ inhibitor.
 The new amines are now produced commercially.
FINAL SPECIFICATIONS
 Introduction
• At this point, we are considering making only one or two products.
• The products may be:
 A chemical, such as a drug to counteract depression.
 A device, such as a new catalytic convertor for reducing NOx emissions.

• We want to choose final specifications for this product:

 For a chemical, need to specify its molecular structure, its final form and its required
purity.
 For a device, need to specify its physical size and shape and mode of operation.

• Each member of the core team must briefly write out these specifications,
and any differences must be resolved by consensus.
• The final specifications must also re-examine our competition:
 Compare our product with the best existing product.
 Identify expected improvements and state how large they need to be.
 Restate all assumptions and decide which assumption involves the most
uncertainty.
Introduction

• Again, at this stage, we want adaptive thinking,

not innovative (“out-of-the-box”) thinking.
• The final specifications are often aided by a
three-step strategy:
 First, define the product structure.
 Second, rank the product’s most important attributes.
 Third, review any chemical triggers.
• These three strategic steps are detailed next.
 Product Structure

• Specifying product structure usually involves:

 Chemical composition. What is the product made of? If chemically

pure, what is its chemical structure? If a device, how can its
composition be changed without affecting its performance?
 Physical geometry. What product characteristics are fixed? Are
there fixed macroscopic dimensions?
 Chemical reactions. Does the product change chemically during
use? Do acids, bases, and salts affect these changes?
 Product thermodynamics. What is the product’s phase? Is the
product thermodynamically stable or metastable?

• This checklist stresses the product’s uniqueness.

 Central Product Attributes

• The long list of product attributes can often be organized

under three headings:

 Structural attributes. Such as product’s physical properties, e.g.,

strength and elasticity. These attributes are more important for
devices than chemicals.

 Equilibrium changes. Many products show major changes in

equilibrium due to altered temperature, pH, or some other process
variable.

 Key rate processes. Rate of chemical reactions, and rates of heat

transfer, mass transfer and fluid flow.

• In our search for final specifications, this organization

helps us find the most important attributes.
 Chemical Triggers

• What makes the product become active?

• What frees the product from its original thermodynamic

bondage?

• This step involves:

 Solvents. These dissolve or disperse the product so it becomes

useful.
 Temperature changes. E.g. regenerating an adsorbent by heating or
cooling.
 Chemical reactions. The most common occur because of pH changes
or hydrolysis.
 Other physical changes. May include pressure, detergency, and
electric field.
 Example – Freon‐Free Foam

• Refrigerators are normally insulated with polyurethane foam.

• The foam is made by injecting the reactive monomers into the
space between the inner and outer walls of the refrigerator.
• Traditionally freon was injected along with the reagents.
• As the reaction proceeded, the freon evaporated, producing a foam
with 95% bubbles containing freon.
• Freon was a very effective insulator but banned by international
agreement.
• Need to find a substitute for freon that has same degree of
insulation.
 Example – Freon‐Free Freon
• The degree of insulation strongly depends on the thermal
conductivity of gas given by:

• The foam blown by CO2 will provide only one third of insulation of
foam blown by freon of equal thickness.
• Foam blown by N2 is even worse.
• What to do?
Example – Freon‐Free Foam
• We will use the three-step strategy.

• Product structure:

 We want a PUF containing 95% gas bubbles.

 The bubbles should be small to avoid free convection.
 But if bubbles are very small, the foams may be
metastable – not a major problem in this case.
 Example – Freon‐Free Foam

• The Key Attribute:

 The foam should be a good internal insulator. This is directly a
result of the thermal conductivity in the foam’s gas-filled bubbles.
 The thermal conductivity highly dependent on whether the bubbles
are large or small.
 Importantly, in small bubbles, the thermal conductivity is
proportional to the bubble size and the pressure.
 Thus we can make a better foam by having small bubbles or a low
gas pressure.
 The difference between small bubble and large bubble is given by
the Knudsen number Kn (mean free path/ bubble diameter).
 Choose bubbles such that Kn>>1.
 Example – Freon‐Free Foam
• Setting Final Specifications:

 But getting bubbles smaller than 1 micron is difficult. How then to

reduce the thermal conductivity?
 The product designers have invented a PUF containing CO2 in the
normal way but in a bag made of metal foil.
 The bag is impermeable to all gases.
 Just before the bag was sealed, they added a spoonful of NaOH to
the bag.
 This NaOH reacts with any available CO2. (This is an important
chemical trigger.)
 As the CO2 reacts, gas pressure gets lower and lower, and the
foam actually became a better insulator than the original freon-
blown foam which it replaced!
 Summary and Conclusions

• Product manufacture is the last step in product design and development.

• This is the point where the study of chemical process design usually
begins.
• Key decisions on product manufacture involve intellectual property,
supplying missing information, and setting final specifications.
• IP decisions focus on whether to patent a product or not.
• Supplying missing information is often demanded by patent applications
and helps us get ready for manufacture.
• Setting final specifications is a check on our thinking and helps restate what
we are doing and what advantages we have over any competition.
• The rest of the chapter focused on specialized topics: microstructured
products and device manufacture which are skipped presently.