(26e) Rapid Process Scale-up through Innovative Design Methodologies

Rapid Process Scale-Up Through
Innovative Design Methodologies

John Prindle¹, Richard Doctor¹, Aspi
Kolah², Carl Lira², Dennis Miller², and C.B.
Panchal¹

¹E3tec
Service, LLC, Clarksville, MD 21029, USA

²Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials
Science,

Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA

Abstract

Scale-up of chemical processes is
an expensive, time-consuming component on the path to commercialization.  While
many new lab-scale technologies have been created to improve specific aspects
of scale-up, additional improvements can be achieved by making detailed performance
prediction tools an integral part of the process development.  This integration
should be seamless and is particularly necessary when scaling up a multiphase reaction
system or systems involving process intensification.

Questions involving commercial
process robustness and sensitivity to operation/feed parameters are compounded
when process units, such as distillation and reactors, are integrated as part
of process intensification.  Conservative approaches dictate the need to move
incrementally from lab-scale to small pilot-scale to large pilot-scale and,
then finally, to commercialization, involving tests at each stage.  Even with
this conservative approach, design uncertainties persist going from one step to
the next.  Seamless integration of detailed modeling tools and novel lab-scale
technologies can allow the elimination of one or more of these scales and/or
reduce design uncertainties, while simultaneously focusing efforts at the
remaining scales to obtain only those data required for validating the design
tools.  This over-arching methodology increases the speed to commercialization
and can lead to the development of innovative, reliable continuous processes
where conventional scale-up approaches would point toward batch.

Our presentation will discuss
efforts in developing and applying detailed performance prediction tools and
integrating them with novel experimental techniques during the scale-up process
to rapidly identify regions in the operating space where efficient, robust
commercial operation can be achieved.  Our particular focus is on Heat-Integrated
Reactive Distillation (HIRD) with the incorporation of side-reactors to provide
further operation flexibility.  Examples will be presented for the scale-up of a
continuous HIRD process with and without side-reactors for the production of
tri-ethyl citrate from citric acid and ethanol.