"Process Always Comes First” When Successfully Applying Mixing Technology

Abstract:

Understanding how mixing affects a process is critical to bridge the gap between the lab and the plant. We must avoid surprises on scale-up to achieve commercial success.

I have been very fortunate in my career to have the opportunity to work on many challenging chemical and physical processes. Many of those required us to balance multiple competing rate processes and sometimes conflicting process responses. Almost always, some of the multiple competing rate processes and process responses would be affected by mixing. Since various mixing parameters scale up differently, understanding which mixing parameters controlled the various process responses and how those would scale up was usually critical to the commercial success of the project.

In this webinar, I will give a personal reflection on my 40 years in industrial mixing and process development. I will share some examples from my career where mixing was criical to commercial success, give my perspective on the critical connection between process and applied mixing technology, relate my experience with networking as an  effective way of managing (and disseminating) technology within a company, and talk about ways to efficiently characterize how mixing affects chemical and physical processes (the Bourne Protocol and more).

Our understanding of mixing technology has grown greatly over the last 40 years. In the examples, I will highlight how we approached certain problems over the years and why some of these “old” approaches should not be forgotten despite recent technological advances. I will close by giving my thoughts on current trends in process development and mixing, along with my opinions on future needs for the mixing and process development communities.

This webinar will include much of the Special Lecture that I gave at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting as the winner of the 2023 AIChE North American Mixing Forum Award for Excellence and Sustained Contributions to Mixing Research and Practice.

Speaker Bio

Aaron Sarafinas is the Principal & Mixing Steward at Sarafinas Process & Mixing Consulting LLC. He started his consulting company in 2018 after working for Rohm and Haas / Dow for almost 36 years. Over his career Aaron established himself as an expert in bridging the gap between the R&D lab and commercial production units. He specializes in process development, especially the impact of mixing technology on processes, with decades of industrial experience in both technical and leadership roles. He continues to apply his experience to enable his consulting clients in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries to achieve faster process development, accomplish efficient troubleshooting, and leverage advantaged mixing technology. In addition to his consulting, Aaron also teaches the course “Applied Mixing Technology for Process Development: Scaling Down to Scale Up” for Scientific Update and had been teaching the course “Scaling and Piloting for the Process Industries” for CfPA Aaron frequently delivers presentations at AIChE meetings, symposia, and conferences on both process development and mixing. He has been an organizer and leader at past AIChE Process Development Symposia. He co-authored a chapter in the NAMF handbook Advances in Industrial Mixing. He has had a long-standing role with the Framatome BHR Fluid Mixing Processes (FMP) consortium, both as a liaison from Rohm and Haas/Dow as well as his current role as a consultant to FMP. Aaron earned his BSChE degree from Northeastern University in 1982 and his MChE from Villanova University while working at Rohm and Haas in 1987. Aaron has 8 US patents related to the practical application of mixing technology to chemical processes.