Design Opportunities

Basic Chemical Products (Commodity and Specialty Chemicals, Biomaterials, Polymeric Materials) 

Consumer Products (Dialysis Devices, Post-it Notes, Transparencies, Drug Delivery Patches, Cosmetics.) 

Other chemical products, often referred to as connnodity chemicals, are required in large quantities. These are often intermediates in the manufacture of specialty chemicals and industrial and consumer products. These include ethylene, propylene, butadiene, methanol, ethanol, ethylene oxide, ethylene glycol, ammonia, nylon, and caprolactam (for carpets), together with solvents like benzene, toluene, phenol, methyl chloride, and tetrahydrofuran, and fuels like gasoline, kerosene, and diesel fuel. These are manufactured in large-scale processes that produce billions of pounds annually in continuous operation. Since they usually involve small well-defined molecules, the focus of the design is on the process to produce these chemicals from various raw materials. 

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These inherently safer design strategies are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3, and examples can also be found in Chapter 4, which discusses inherently safer design opportunities through the life cycle of a chemical process. 

S. M. Englund, Process and Design Opportunities for Inherently Safer Plants, in V. M. Fthenakis (editor). Prevention and Control of Accidental Releases of Hazardous Gases, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1993. 

In addition to many of the major present markets expanding, the design opportunities for plastics materials in the future will be in such areas where the special properties of the... 

Today, the power train costs of fuel-cell vehicles are still far from being competitive. They have the largest influence on the economic efficiency of hydrogen use in the transport sector and the greatest challenge is to drastically reduce fuel-cell costs from currently more than 2000/kW to less than 100/kW for passenger cars. On the other hand, fuel-cell drive systems offer totally new design opportunities for... 

General Design Opportunities for Inherently Safer Chemical Plants"... 

Blundell TL et al (2006) Structural biology and bioinformatics in drug design opportunities and challenges for target identification and lead discovery. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361 (1467) 413-423... 

As noted, copper electroplating of wafer interconnects poses significant challenges primarily due to the extreme requirements it mandates for uniformity, purity, and process control. On the other hand, it offers, because of its unique characteristics, special design opportunities that call for departure from classical acid copper process parameters. 

Zeolites [64] are crystalline aluminosilicates with a three dimensional micro-porous framework formed by corner sharing SiO and AIO4. (i.e. TO4) tetra-hedra. A framework with Si02 composition is stoichiometrically neutral. The substitution of Si by Al in such a silicate framework, results in an excess negative charge, which is compensated by cations or protons. Zeolites have unique adsorption and catalytic properties. Their diversity in framework composition and structure type leads to almost unlimited design opportunities. 

Safety professionals are encouraged to venture into safety through design. Opportunities there for accomplishment and recognition are great. 

Even if not of immediate application. Stops I and II deserve more attention by instructors and education researchers. The task of education researchers is dual. At a minimum, they should openly acknowledge in their writings their own beliefs. In addition, the engineering education research community should (a) design opportunities for communities of instructors to acknowledge, crystallize and modify beliefs and (b) undertake research projects to uncover beliefs and unstated links to instructional decisions. 

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