Process intensification history

Stankiewicz A., Drinkenburg A.A.H. 2004. Process intensification History, philosophy, principles. In, Chemical Industries, Marcel Dekker, NY pp. 1-32. 

The second example of process intensification at DSM is the urea process (5). The history of the urea process at DSM is rather long, as shown in Table 5. Urea is produced in a two-step process. The first step is the formation of carbamate from NH3 and C02. This reaction is exothermic. The second step is the decomposition of carbamate into urea and water. This second reaction is slightly endothermic. Both reactions are equilibrium reactions. The conversion to urea in equilibrium is about 60%. This means that substantial recycle flow is necessary to obtain sufficient overall conversion. In the reaction section the main unit operations are ... 

Reay, D., Ramshaw, C. and Harvey, A. (2008) A brief history of process intensification, in Process Intensification (Engineering for Efficiency, Sustainability and Flexibility) (eds D. Reay, C. Ramshaw, and A. Harvey), Elsevier Pub, Amsterdam, Ch. 1, p. 1. 

What was lacking a decade ago in terms of process principles and examples has now been supplied by David Reay, Colin Ramshaw, and Adam Harvey in this book on Process Intensification (PI). The authors chronicle the history of PI with emphasis on heat and mass transfer. For the business manager and project manager the PI Overview presents the value proposition for PI including capital reduction (smaller, cheaper), safety (reduced volume), environmental impact, and energy reduction. In addition, PI offers the promise of improved raw material yields. The authors deal with the obstacles to implanenting PI, chief of which is risk management. 

To obtain an understanding of the concept of process intensification, an appreciation of its development history and its relationship to conventional technologies. 

We have discussed a series of examples and aspects, such as the problem of risk and sustainability assessment, tools and principles for a sustainable industrial development (in particular, the issue of scaling-down and intensification of chemical processes, and the role of catalysis), and problems and opportunities in substituting chemical and processes (also in the view of REACH legislation, and of the international chemicals policy on sustainability). These topics are expanded in the following chapters, while the final section on industrial case histories for sustainable chemical processes provides further hints on these aspects. 

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