Lecture – 31_Process Intensification

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Can it be defined as….???
• A few decades ago a general feeling developed that the
discipline of Chemical Engineering was reaching maturity

• This would imply that new breakthrough developments

were not to be expected anymore

• However, the static picture has changed profoundly

• And it became felt that the field of chemical engineering

was much broader than often realized

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Can it be defined as….?
• In 1995, while opening the 1st International Conference
on Process Intensification in the Chemical Industry,
Ramshaw, one of the pioneers in the field, defined
process intensification

• “as a strategy for making dramatic reductions in the size

of a chemical plant so as to reach a given production
objective”

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What this could be ?????
We are witnessing important new developments that go
beyond “traditional” chemical engineering. Engineers at
many universities and industrial research centers are
working on novel equipment and techniques that
potentially could transform the concept of chemical
plants and lead to compact, safe, energy-efficient,
and sustainable processes

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Different ways of …….to define Process
Intensification
• Process intensification, being driven by the need for breakthrough
changes in operations, focuses mainly on novel methods and
equipment. But, it also encompasses certain established
technologies and hardware

• These reductions can come from

• shrinking the size of individual pieces of equipment and
• from lessening the number of unit operations or apparatuses
involved
• These developments share a common focus on “process
intensification” — an approach that has been around for quite some
time but has truly emerged only in the past few years as a special and
interesting discipline of chemical engineering
• What is it?
• Is it structure, size??

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How to intensify the process???
How to intensify process
• Basic phenomena takes place at microscale and the
nanoscale levels, and the relevance of this scale for PI is
obvious

• In the future, probably the real impact will be on these

scales

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PI approach
A “PI approach” has been summarized by the following
guidelines:

• optimize kinetics (maximize the reaction rates of the

desired reactions, minimize the rates of undesired
reactions);
• give each molecule the same processing experience;
• optimize the driving forces and the associated surface
areas;
• maximize synergies by combining sub processes.

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Example here: Un structured
Catalytic Reactors
• In a reactor, more often than not, by-products are
generated along with the desired products

• Formation of by-products requires separation

equipment and usually also recycle streams

• Thus, improvement of the reactor design can have a

large impact on the product yields

• Mostly for three phase flows or two phase flows,

slurry reactors and trickle bed reactors are used
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• Slurry reactors are most frequently used when a liquid reactant
must be contacted with a solid catalyst, and when a reaction has
a high heat of reaction

• Examples include: hydrogenation reactions

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PI approach: an example

• Instead of chaotic packing of conventional reactors,

reactors can be designed and built that are characterized
by regular spatial structures

• These reactors are referred to as structured reactors

• One example is monolithic reactors

• Use of a structured catalyst and/or reactor permits

almost total control over all relevant length scales for
mass transfer and catalysis

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 Monolithic reactors: Meso scale
Monoliths, the most popular
structured reactors are
continuous structures
consisting of a large number
of parallel channels

• Desired properties for PI can be translated into maximizing the

related specific area (Adiffusive transport/Vreactor)

• In the volume, more surface area is provided for the reaction to

take place
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Assumed that

• Flows inside traditional three-phase reactors are very badly

defined. On the other hand, flow inside a single monolithic channel
is extremely simple. There are no problems with turbulence, it is
all laminar flow

• So this was theoretical view point

• It was to be checked & understood with experiments

• Hence first of all monolithic reactors was prepared/ built

• What makes up the flow inside a monolithic
reactor, in so far as relevant for reactor
science?
1. First experiments were carried out which
resulted in chaotic flow patterns

2. Gas and liquid were pumped upwards

through the channels of a vertical column
of monolithic material

3. Some channels were found to contain only

gas, while others contained nothing but
liquid, precluding any reaction between the
gas and liquid phases

4. Some of the liquid stayed inside the

monolithic structure for quite a while,
whereas some emerged soon after entry

5. All in all, not much of a structure

6. Conclusion was soon drawn that flow

pattern, from the bottom upwards, was not
coverging
Would a top-down flow perform better?

What makes up the flow inside a monolithic reactor?

Both computer simulations and experiments to look into the behavior of the
gas/liquid flow in the monolithic structure

Essential parameters include the

• loss of pressure between the inlet and outlet,

• flow pattern,

• and the mass transfer of reactants towards the reactor walls (remember walls
are coated with a thin layer (about ten micro meters, which is one-tenth of the
thickness of the wall) of catalyst material, usually a combination containing
elements such as alumina, platinum, and palladium
Another question

• Inside every reactor, gas and liquid ultimately have to find their way into the
porous material of the catalyst, in which the actual conversion takes place

• In monolithic structures, the catalyst material sits on the walls of the channels.
That is where the desired end product, usually certain kind of liquid, is formed

Then question comes is

What type of flow pattern will get the gas and liquid molecules to the wall in
the shortest possible time????

Typical flow pattern inside a single narrow monolithic channel is what is known as
Taylor flow
• Flow pattern changes from bubble flow to film flow

• In the bubble flow, liquid is a continuous phase and the gas is a

discontinuous phase, being present as bubbles; in the film the
liquid flows downward as a film along the walls, while the gas is a
continuous phase that can flow upward or downward
In monoliths the two important flow patterns are film flow and Taylor
flow, also referred as “slug flow” or “segmented flow”

Taylor flow , in which large gas bubbles with an elongated nose and a
flattened rear are separated by slugs of liquid

Taylor flow combines a low pressure drop with very high mass
transfer rates and near-plug-flow behavior
Major findings

• Flow pattern

• Design of monolithic reactors

• Stir harder and get better mixing. But not in monolithic reactors.
Micro reactors
• Recently, small-scale continuous-flow reactors have
received a great deal of attention, firstly as laboratory
reactors, then later also for industrial-scale production
of fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and specialty
chemicals, and even bulk chemicals

• These so-called micro reactors (or micro flow reactors)

are devices consisting of single or multiple small-
diameter channels (typically between 10 and 1000
μm) that allow reactions to be carried out on the
submillimeter scale

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• Several reactions that are currently carried out in batch
or semi-batch reactors could benefit from continuous
operation in micro reactors
• Such reactions are generally fast or very fast and/or
involve thermal hazards

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Some of the technological advantages of micro reactors
over large batch reactors are:
• easier control – this is particularly relevant for safely
conducting highly exothermic reactions such as
nitrations and oxidations;
• much better mixing and mass and heat transfer
efficiency, resulting in less by-products
• extremely small material hold-up – this, in combination
with the easier control, leads to inherently safer
• processes; high flexibility owing to their modular design
(Figure 14.10);

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• large-scale production can be achieved by “numbering
up” (i.e., increasing the number of reactors) instead of
the traditional “scaling up” (i.e., increasing the reactor
size)

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• Besides reaction kinetics, another factor to take into
account is the different phases involved (solid–liquid–
gas)

• In many reactions a solid is present, whether as

reactant, catalyst, or product

• The micro reactors currently available can only handle

solids very poorly; solid particles may easily block the
micro channels

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• Thus, the (multipurpose) use of micro reactors is still
limited to homogeneous reactions and, to some extent,
to gas– liquid and liquid–liquid reactions.

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