Paradigm Change Drives Miniplant Design Methodology

Paradigm Change Drives Miniplant Design Methodology 

1 Reduction of Process Complexity for Distributed Chemical Manufacture 

The miniplant concept was proposed first by Ponton at the University of Edinburgh (UK) in 1993 [1,58-60], The potential benefits of distributed processing, as outlined above and reported elsewhere [2, 4], were identified, in particular focusing on an increase in process safety. However, the critical evaluation of the miniplant concept also revealed a number of potential drawbacks. For instance, the specific production costs of a small production units not only depend on reactor miniaturization, but are also determined by control instruments and other peripheral equipment. 

A particularly important feature of the work of Ponton is the stress on the importance of reducing process complexity of distributed small-scale devices, e.g. 

---

Paradigm Change Drives Miniplant Design Methodology... 

---