Educating the Customer: PI - What’s it all about? Dr Mike Jones, Protensive PROCESS INTENSIFICATION: Meeting the Business and Technical Challenges, Gaining Competitive Advantage The Royal Institution of Great Britain, London: 19th November 2003

What is PI?

Process Intensification - a definition Significantly enhances the transport rates Gives every molecule the same processing experience

A Reason So rather than adapting the operating conditions and chemistry to available classical equipment, the process structure, architecture and equipment can be adapted to the physico-chemical transformation

What is PI?

Typical Methods for Contacting Two Fluid Phases Channel Scale 50  m  m

Scale-Up for Intensified Processes Future Vision Low Volume Fine Chemicals Several single channel devices with high flow velocity could produce 10s of  l/s or around 1kg per day. Medium Volume Chemical Production Blocks with 1000s of channels running in parallel could provide higher yield when accurate manifold technology developed.

COMBUSTION CATALYST PROCESS CATALYST COMBUSTION GAS (CH 4 + AIR) PROCESS GAS (CH 4 + H 2 O) A pair of adjacent channels in the catalytic plate reactor showing the coupling of an endothermic reaction (Methane Reforming) with an exothermic reaction (Methane Combustion)

Comparison of the Productivity of Different Reactors

Electrolytic flow cells

Liquid Film Solid Surface Micro Mixers Influence of Surface Waves

Typical raman spectra taken from SDR.

FTIR ATR bulk polymerization of styrene

FT-NIR following a polymerization

Styrene proton signals all but gone Polymerization evaluated by 1 H NMR

Main products from the rearrangement of  -pinene oxide

Rearrangement reaction; A –  -pinene oxide, B – campholenic aldehyde Simplified reaction paths, where B is the wanted product (campholenic aldehyde)

Control size size distribution form coating Applications Pharmaceuticals Electronics Inkjets Semiconductors Why?

Performance of SDR Process - 75% yield after 4 hrs - 25% unreacted starting material  recycle, reprocess

On-Disc Monitoring of CaCO 3 Production Probes mounted on disc surface to monitor ion depletion. Results confirm particle production is mass transfer limited and takes place on the spinning disc.

Examples of film thickness measurements made using this system. Film thickness typically is in the 0.01m to 1mm range. Real-Time Film Thickness Monitoring

Liquid-Solid Mass Transfer Results Results for 6mm Electrodes at 9 Radial Locations

Summary Rapid process screening Rapid process development Rapid scale-up Novel products and processes JIT Integrated processes common standards