High-value plant products

As the nonwoven fabrics industry has matured and technology has become pubHcly available, emphasis in the various sectors of the industry has changed. In the 1990s, some portions of the nonwovens industry are technology driven, whereas others are market driven. A number of firms are proprietary technology based, and others are turn-key plant operations. Some corporations are commodity roU-goods producers, and others are more oriented to niche market, high value-added products. Many nonwoven produces continue the quest for new markets and more opportunities to compete with textiles, paper, and plastics. 

Overview Batch processes are mostly suited to low volume high value added products that are usually characterised by common recipes, which render them amenable to sharing of equipment units. Due to their intrinsic adaptation to sudden changes in recipe, they are processes of choice in volatile or unstable conditions that have become regular in global markets. This chapter provides the background information on batch chemical processes, which constitutes the basis for the forthcoming chapters. Only the essential elements of batch plants are captured with references, where necessary, to further sources of information for the benefit of the reader. 

Process control of the manufacturing plants will continue to improve. There will be less material in process, the equipment will be smaller and of higher capacity so sharp control should be in place. Better control will give improved conversions and enhance product quality, especially for high-value-added products. 

Extraction of Active Compounds from Plant Materials. A variety of natural products present in plant materials, especially high-value-added products, can be processed with supercritical fluids. Because many of these have pharmacological activity, a natural extension of this application is to the field of drug analysis. 

Argon and the other rare gases, such as neon, helium, krypton and xenon, have no application in petrochemical synthesis, but they are frequently recovered in large air separation plants for sale in the merchant market. They are small volume, high value by-products that can often have a beneficial impact on the overall economics of oxygen and nitrogen production by virtue of significant by-product credits. 

Detection and Quantification of Naturally Occurring Compounds. Antibodies can be prepared for naturally occurring compounds as well as for pesticides and drugs. This opens the way for developing rapid immunoassays for plant and microbial products such as mycotoxins, plant hormones, and high value plant components such as flavor and fragrance compounds and pharmaceutical precursors. 

The production of high-value-added products (pharmaceutical active principles, agrochemicals, etc.) has stimulated investigations on batch processes for several decades. Generally, a batch plant can manufacture several products sharing standard equipment in a series of production campaigns, with the ability to adapt itself to variations of raw materials and to rapid market flucmations. A batch process involves discrete tasks embedded in an interconnected predefined sequence from raw materials to final products. The predefined sequence is commonly known as a recipe. The recipe consists of the amount of raw materials that are necessary to be involved in the individual tasks as well as their durations. It also includes the operating conditions of the tasks as well as additional constraints of the process (safety features for instance). 

Facchini, P. J., et ak, Synthetic biosystems for the production of high-value plant metabolites. Trends Biotechnol, 2012. 30(3) p. 127-31. 

The results obtained in this work can be used to solve the service problems of the following important engineering structures (1) transportation Systems and Vehicles - aircraft, space vehicles, trains, ships (2) civil Structures bridges, dams, tunnels (3) power generation— nuclear, fossil fuel and hydroelectric plants (4) high-value manufactured products— latmch systems, satellites, semiconductor and electronic equipment (5) industrial equipment—oil and gas exploration, production and processing equipment, chemical process facilities, pulp and paper. 

Industrial processes cmivert low-value carbon into high value-added products. To be economically viable, the cost of the overall bioprocess must be significantly less than the selling price of the product. Many variables contribute to bioprocess costs, but for bulk biochemicals such as biofuels and industrial chemicals (which many isoprenoids are used for), the price of the feedstock is the primary cost driver (Rude and Schirmer 2009 WUlke and Vorlop 2008). Currently, carbohydrates from plant biomass are the most important carbon feedstock for fermentation. Plants accumulate simple sugars, cellulose or lipids, which bacteria can convert into energy, biomass and products. Popular model organisms exploited in industry (such as... 

In 1991, the relatively old and small synthetic fuel production faciHties at Sasol One began a transformation to a higher value chemical production facihty (38). This move came as a result of declining economics for synthetic fuel production from synthesis gas at this location. The new faciHties installed in this conversion will expand production of high value Arge waxes and paraffins to 123,000 t/yr in 1993. Also, a new faciHty for production of 240,00 t/yr of ammonia will be added. The complex will continue to produce ethylene and process feedstock from other Sasol plants to produce alcohols and higher phenols. 

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