Chemical engineering issues

In 1997, the Institution of Chemical Engineers issued the London Communique, signed by 18 chemical engineering societies from around the world. The Communique designed this broader perspective for the chemical engineering profession... 

Trushin, B.N., Davankov, A.B., Korshak, V.V., Chemistry and Technology of Organic Substances and High Molecular Weight Compounds, Transactions of the D.I. Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Engineering, issue 57, Moscow, 1968, 119-123. 

In December 2007, the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, issued Process Safety Leading and Lagging Metrics. This publication is being given particular attention because of its significance. 

See Chemical Engineering News, April 24, 1989, p. 37. la. W. N. Unertl and M. Grunze, Physical and Chemical Mechanisms of Tribology, special issue, Langmuir, 12, 4481-4610 (1996). 

An important issue is howto solve large problems that occur in distributed systems. The optimization of distributed systems is discussed in Refs. 52, 120, 244, and 285. For further reading on optimization, readers are directed to Refs. 120 and 244 as well as introductory texts on optimization applied to chemical engineering (Refs. 99 and 225). The material in this section is part of a more advanced treatment (Ref. 295). 

Table 9-42 presents information on some cost indices for the United States. Engineering News-Record updates its construction-cost index in March, June, September, and December. The Oil and Gas Journal gives the Nelson-Farrar refinery indices in the first issue of each quarter. The Chemical Engineering plant-cost index and Marshall and Swift equipment-cost index are given in each issue of the pubhcation Chemical Engineering. Derivation of the base values is referred to in the respective publications. 

Costs of shell-and-tube heat exchangers can be estimated from Fig. 11-41 and Tables 11-13 and 11-14. These 1960 costs should be updated by use of the Marshall and Swift Index, which appears in each issue of Chemical Engineering. Note that during periods of high and low demand for heat exchangers the prices in the marketplace may vary significantly from those determined by this method. 

Erurip, D. J., T. C. Elofelich, D. J. Eeggett, J. J. Kurland, and J. K. Niemeier, 1997. A Review of Chemical Compatibility Issues, Proceedings of the Annual Loss Prevention Symposium, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Vol. 31, 1997. 

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICliE) wishes to thank the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and those involved in its operation, including its many sponsors whose funding and technical support made this project possible. Particular thanks are due to the members of the Batch Reaction Subcommittee for their enthusiasm, tireless effort and technical contributions. Members of the subcommittee played a major role in the writing of this book by suggesting examples, by offering failure scenarios for the major equipment covered in the book and by suggesting possible solutions to the various Con-cerns/Issues mentioned in the tables. 

G. L. Elamm and R. G. Schwartz, Issues and Strategies in Risk Decision Making, International Process Safety Management Conference and Workshop, September 22-24, 1993, San Francisco, CA, 351-371, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY, 1993. 

Roy, R. (1977) Interdisciplinary. tcience on campus - the elusive dream. Chemical Engineering News (August issue). 

For over 30 years the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) has been involved with process safety and loss control issues in the chemical, petrochemical, hydrocarbon process and related industries and facilities. AIChE publications and symposia are information resources for the chemical engineering and other professions on the causes of process incidents and the means of preventing their occurrences and mitigating their consequences. 

This level of simplicity is not the usual case in the systems that are of interest to chemical engineers. The complexity we will encounter will be much higher and will involve more detailed issues on the right-hand side of the equations we work with. Instead of a constant or some explicit function of time, the function will be an explicit function of one or more key characterizing variables of the system and implicit in time. The reason for this is that of cause. Time in and of itself is never a physical or chemical cause—it is simply the independent variable. When we need to deal with the analysis of more complex systems the mechanism that causes the change we are modeling becomes all important. Therefore we look for descriptions that will be dependent on the mechanism of change. In fact, we can learn about the mechanism of... 

It is not sufficient to issue instructions about (1) and the aid described in (2). We must convince all concerned, particularly foremen, that they should not carry out unauthorized modifications. This can be done by discussing typical incidents, such as those described here those illustrated in the Institution of Chemical Engineers (UK) Safety Training Package No. 025, Modifications—The Management of Change or better still, incidents that have occurred in your own company. 

Despite the lack of interest in human factors issues in the CPI in the past, the situation is now changing. In 1985, Trevor Kletz published his landmark book on human error in the CPI An Engineer s View of Human Error (revised in 1991). Several other books by the same author e.g., Kletz (1994b) have also addressed the issue of human factors in case studies. Two other publications have also been concerned specifically with human factors in the process industry Lorenzo (1990) was commissioned by the Chemical Manufacturers Association in the USA, and Mill (1992), published by the U.K. Institution of Chemical Engineers. In 1992, CCPS and other organizations sponsored a conference on Human Factors and Human Reliability in Process Safety (CCPS, 1992c). This was further evidence of the growing interest in the topic within the CPI. 

Figure 4-4. Comparison chart showing ranges of performance of severai collection/control devices in air streams. By permission, Vandegrift, ef. a/. Chemical Engineering, Deskbook issue, June 18, 1973, p. 109.

These challenges are critical to the profession of chemical engineering, the chemical industry, and our country. Risk assessment and management involve input from a multitude of different disciplines. The methodology is rapidly changing and extremely complex and reqrrires both technical input and input from professionals with expertise in legal, economic, judicial, medical, regrrlatory, and public perception issues. 

Astrid M.W. Bulte is a researcher in science edncation, being since 1999 connected to the Freudenthal Institnte for Science and Mathematics Education at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. In her current position she focuses her research on the development and evaluation of authentic practice-based science units for secondary education. She contributes to the education of student - science teachers, teaching students how to communicate science issues. She takes a leading position in national curriculum developments. After she obtained her Master degree in Chemical Engineering Science in 1989, she completed her doctoral thesis in 1994 in the same subject at the same university. From 1994 till 1999, she was a teacher of physics and chemistry in secondary education. 

The project made it possible to establish the systematization base of catalytic reaction engirreering as a new hybrid discipline. This poject produced many useful and progressive results, as presented at the lO Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemiral Engineering (APCChE 2004), which was held in Kitakyushu, Jepan in October, 2004. Repesentative papers, except for previously published pepers, are published in the Journal of Chemical Enginecring of Japan, issued by the Japan Sodety of Chemical Engineering, Japan in 2005. 

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