Process systems engineers solvents

Process systems engineers play an active role in ensuring that these decisions are technically sound and integrate environmental sustainability aspects. Some examples of PSE tools used for key materials such as solvents, reagents, and formulation materials are described next. 

The safety of a process can be achieved by inherent (internal) and external means. Inherent safety focuses on the intrinsic properties of a process and attempts to design out hazards rather than trying to control hazards through the application of external protective systems. Inherently safer processes rely on chemistry and physics (properties of materials, quantity of hazardous materials) instead of control systems (interlocks, alarms, procedures) to protect workers, property, and the environment. It would be inappropriate to talk about an inherendy safe process, as an absolute definition of safe is difficult to achieve in this context since risk cannot be reduced to zero. However, one can talk about a process or chemical being inherently safer than other(s). For instance, water can be an extremely hazardous chemical under certain conditions (e.g., floods), but in the context of a chemical process, water is an inherently safer solvent than other chemicals. Trevor Kletz has postulated some basic principles of inherent safety [79,80] that process systems engineers can follow when designing or retrofitting chemical processes. Kletz s inherent safety principles can be summarized as follows ... 

Many operations involve the use of solvent tanks for surface treatment, metal cleaning, degreasing, stripping and acid treatment. Canopy receiving hoods are sometimes utilized to collect contaminants from some of these operations however, they are most effective when used for hot processes. The engineer must consider air movement and currents which may allow the release of the contaminant into the workplace when designing such a system. In addition, some processes may involve the movement of workers heads over the tank or the lifting of... 

Engineering Considerations To effect the good engineering design of an activated carbon adsorption system, it is first necessary to obtain information on the following the actual cubic feet per minute (ACFM) of air to be processed by the adsorber, the temperature of gas stream, the material(s) to be absorbed, the concentration of the material to be adsorbed, and if the intended application is air pollution control such as odor control - then the odor threshold of the material to be adsorbed. In addition, data is needed on the presence of other constituents in the gas stream, and whether or not solvent recovery is economical. 

Our Chemical Engineering colleagues had developed an elegant impinging jet crystallization which provided excellent particle size control for the finasteride process [13]. In the final pilot plant campaign just before the factory start-up, the crystallization suddenly started producing a different particle size distribution and lower recovery. The problem was traced to a new finasteride solvate which reduced the solubility in the crystallization solvent system. Fortunately, only relatively... 

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