Using Simulation and Digitalization in Modular Chemical Processing for Process Intensification

The chemical process industries (CPI) have been built upon two fundamental tenets: economies of scale, and unit operations. Traditional chemical processing takes advantage of economies of scale by building large plants, which make better use of capital and resources. And, the processing steps are grouped into unit operations, which are combined like building blocks to design and build plants. Recently, these tenets have been challenged by smaller plants that combine more than one function in a single piece of equipment — i.e.,process intensification (PI) — and by the modularization of processing units. To exploit the capital, resource, safety, environmental, and other benefits of PI and modularization, engineers need to develop technologies at a rapid pace and test them virtually. Digitalization and simulation are key tools for doing this. Digitalization provides a new way of creating, sharing, storing, and analyzing data that enables an integrated engineering and design approach and eliminates the "silos" typical in many organizations. Simulation can play an important role in the "creation" of data, supplementing traditional data collection and creation via experimental measurements. This article demonstrates how these tools can help achieve the broader goals of process intensification.