Minimum efficient scale capacity

Commodity prices are typically volatile both intra-year and over several years, reflecting shifting demand and supply curves. For industrial commodities there is a traditional cycle of interaction between GDP-driven demand fluctuations and lags in supply which leads to pronounced boom-bust pricing variations. This is especially true in industries with a high minimum efficient scale (MES) of capacity such as oil refining and petrochemicals, where new plant may add materially to industry supply, leading to a big fall in prices. 

Economics of scale, conventionally associated with manufacturing operations, is probably the most important of these costs drivers and exists wherever as the scale of production increases unit costs fall. A plant capacity has then an economic sense if a minimum efficiency plant capacity is reached. 

In the chromatography technique, proteins bind differentially to solid matix supports or media with various functional groups to provide hydrophobic, ion-exchange, and affinity interactions. Some of the matrices used for intermediate purification that provide sufficient flow rate for large-scale purification are listed in Table 4.13. Some of the functional groups attached to matrix supports and examples of proteins purified by these matrix supports are fisted in Table 4.14. The chromatography technique should provide high capacity and selectivity. The matrix material must withstand multiple purification cycles with minimum loss of efficiency. 

As reactors are scaled up in size, it is frequently necessary to add supplemental heat removal capacity since the heat transfer area (of reactor walls) only increases with reactor volume to the 0.67 power, while heat generation rate is proportional to volume. Internal cooling coils and baffles may increase the heat transfer area by 30—50%, however, these can only be used efficiently when scale formation is at a minimum and viscosities relatively low. Poor mixing in dead spots around coils/baffles may actually increase scale formation and thus contribute to poor product quality and operational difficulties. 

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