Scale-up and scale-down of

chemical processes
 Executive summary
• In scale-up, product and process development
tend to move in small steps
– Lab scale to bench scale, then to pilot scale, finally
to production scale
– This reduces the risk with the larger investments
in the next step
• Scale-down is mainly for troubleshooting or
development of processes used in ongoing
production
 “Definitions”
• Laboratory scale (OK at university)
– Done in test tubes etc., some grams of product
• Bench scale (OK at university)
– Device fits in a normal room, kilograms
• Pilot scale (almost never at university)
– A “small industrial machine” that requires several
men to operate it, possibly has its own building,
tens of kilgrams to tons of product
• Industry scale, machinery may occupy the
area of a university campus
 These are the steps to industrial
production!
• Lab scale: prove that a product can be made from
raw materials (“Proof of concept study”)
• Bench: make enough product to test its
properties, learn about fundamentals of
processing, improve formulation
• Pilot: Try small scale production before bigger
investment at high risk. Critical points? Problems?
Automation? Space and power requirements?
Help in designing a factory or plant!
 Use of pilot plant
• Check alternatives before
designing full scale
production
– For example: which types of pumps, separators,
heat exchangers, mixers, dryers, etc.
– Handling interruptions in production: emptying
reactors or tanks, cleaning, shut-down and start-
• up procedures
When full-scale production is ongoing
– Solve problems without interrupting production,
take the problems to the pilot machine
 Further uses of pilot plant
• Check the product again! Demonstrations in lab
and bench scale are not enough.
– Food product: sensory, chemical, and microbiological
qualities; shelf-life; test marketing
– Improvements in formulation and processing
• Note that the pilot results can discourage
or
prevent going to full scale
– This is not a failure despite losses, this is part of
the
reasons why pilot testing is done. The useful result
is
 You simply can NOT
• Design a full-scale plant based on test tube
experiments
– The designer will not know what to do, without
some testing of alternatives
– The risk of failure is too high, especially with the
big investment required: you can not get the
money (by loaning or by selling shares)
 Many decisions needed
• Mixing
– Type of mixer, power or mixing speed used
• Heating or cooling
– What rate of heating (cooling) is good or
desirable?
– How long should we “hold” a high temperature?
• Each unit operation requires several choices
– These can not be decided without pilot equipment
Full scale production decisions needed
for design
• How much should be produced?
– What is the market demand, what is the forecast
for it?
– The demand depends on price, and production
costs depend on amount produced…
– What is availability of raw materials? Cost, supply,
price forecasts, …
• Do we expect to increase production capacity?
Which effects of such increase need
consideration in initial design?
 What is down-scaling?
• The production process needs decisions
– Troubleshooting: Solve problems that are causing
losses (poor quality, interruptions in production,
…)
– Improve productivity or product quality
– Assess lower cost raw materials, additives,
consumables, unit operations
• Some of this is fit for the pilot plant
– Test new raw materials, test new mixer, heater,
sensor, or control system …
 Down-scaling to bench scale
• Benefits
– Small material costs, while pilot would need tons
of raw materials
– Can test conditions that are not possible with
process equipment (higher temperatures,
pressures, …), or such that might damage the pilot
machine
– Pilot is designed to be similar to actual
production, just smaller. Bench scale should be
designed to enable experiments, observations and
measurements.
 Bench-scale downsides
• Not similar to actual process operation
– Often slower, smaller, batch instead of continuous
– Results may not be correct
– The decisions suggested by bench-scale need
checking in pilot scale, before going to production
plant
 Making paper (lab scale)
• You can make single
sheets of paper in the
lab with a “handsheet
mold”
•
It is just a standard
size and shape gravity
filtering device (small
vacuum from water
column)
 Bench-scale papermaking
• Fiber suspension
is sprayed inside
a rotating drum
onto a filter
• The water is
centrifuged out
• Drum about
similar size as in
a washing
machine
A pilot paper machine
A “real” paper machine
 Goals for each
• Real machine
Designed to produce as quickly as possible product of
sufficient quality, beat competitors on market
• Pilot
Scale-down

Help sell the real machine by demonstrating it to buyers,

help develop next real machine, troubleshoot production

Scale-up
• problems. Imitate several real designs when possible.
Bench
Inspect one unit operation at a low cost for some
decisions about raw materials, additives, process
parameters. Designed for experiments and observation.
• Duplicate key phenomena of real process, not the
process itself.
Lab
Nothing to do with the actual process. Demonstrate a
reaction, or a composite material, etc. Characterize raw
materials and their quality variations or differences.
 Summary
• Scale-up
– Moving from lower cost and smaller scale, to higher
cost and larger scale
• Scale-down, opposite of scale-up
– Most often about trouble-shooting or further
development of a large scale process that need
experiments in smaller scale
– Sometimes scale-down of a product, in the extreme
this is miniaturization
• More customers for lower cost smaller size product
• Drones vs. airplanes is one example