Research process concepts

In the electronics industry, a large number of relatively small firms play a key role in generating new process concepts and equipment. These firms face important research problems in fundamental science and engineering that would benefit markedly from the insights of academic chemical engineering researchers. Academic researchers should seek out and forge links to these small firms that stand at the crucial step between laboratory research and production processes. Potential mechanisms for accomplishing this are described in Chapter 10. 

Process R D literature review patent review research reports bench scale pilot reports sketch of flow sheet chemicals and their characteristics chemical reactions and interactions thermodynamics physical properties preliminary process concept Laboratory screening and testing for chemicals (toxicity, instability, explosibility) for reactions (explosibility) for impurities Pilot plant tests... 

In this research, the main focus is safety in a chemical company handling hazardous substances. The risks of accidents or other events during processes involving hazardous substances (flammable, toxic, or explosive) or activities where extreme conditions are used (like high/low pressures or high/low temperatures), are subject of this research. Process safety is the absence of risk from events with these hazardous substances and activities with extreme conditions. Non-process safety or process risk is often measured by accidents, incidents and near misses and this concept will be discussed in the following sub-Section. 

But science is neither value free nor independent. Values do and should enter into important phases of the research process such as problem identification, design of methods and experiments, model assumptions and the use of normative concepts (Alroe and Kristensen 2002). Some concepts that are widely used in agricultural research are clearly value laden. Obvious examples include sustainability, food quality, soil quality, nature quality, animal welfare, rural development and human wellbeing. Such concepts often have different meanings in different groups, discourses and research disciplines. These conceptual differences influence the kinds of... 

Researchers at Degussa AG focused on an alternative means towards commercial application of the Julia-Colonna epoxidation [41]. Successful development was based on design of a continuous process in a chemzyme membrane reactor (CMR reactor). In this the epoxide and unconverted chalcone and oxidation reagent pass through the membrane whereas the polymer-enlarged organocatalyst is retained in the reactor by means of a nanofiltration membrane. The equipment used for this type of continuous epoxidation reaction is shown in Scheme 14.5 [41]. The chemzyme membrane reactor is based on the same continuous process concept as the efficient enzyme membrane reactor, which is already used for enzymatic a-amino acid resolution on an industrial scale at a production level of hundreds of tons per year [42]. 

Within the broader context of their chosen research project, module authors communicate chemical concepts and introduce students to the research process. Faculty are motivated to write CASPiE modules in part because they recognize the opportunity to teach students the chemistry concepts involved in their own research. One module author described her motivation by saying, I wanted to come up with a very simple and, and very um, elegant experiment that can explain many concepts that are the key concepts of solid state chemistry (Module author 3). Another author, in describing the approach he took to develop the introductory activities, said, I was thinking, are those... 

This chapter seeks to place the diversity concept into perspective when considering the research process. 

In recent research, the concept of simultaneous electron and proton transfer has been explored. In this process, directly coupled electron and proton transfer result in the formal transfer of a hydrogen atom (Figure 18, path C). In this pathway, two quantum events occur electron tunneling and proton tunneling [56. Whereas electron tunneling is a well-accepted phenomenon, proton tunneling is a far less commonly invoked property. Proton tunneling can be readily understood if we consider... 

Among the new process concepts, design approaches for ultradeep desulfurization focus on several different areas.Some researchers are looking at adsorption and sulfur atom extraction-removing sulfur by using... 

Issued quarterly. Tech Briefs is a current-awareness medium and a problem-solving tool for its industrial subscribers. Each issue contains information on more than 100 newly-developed processes, advances in basic and applied research, innovation concepts, improvements in shop and laboratory techniques, and new sources of technical data and computer programs derived from the many and varied aerospace R D activities. 

Process research has been carried out in bench-scale units. This work has also continued in larger-scale pilot plants, using the newly developed catalysts. Studies in large pilot plants were initiated to investigate the process configuration, to help in the development of the reactor and to prove the process concept. These studies have provided the necessary process design data. 

This book is restricted essentially to aqueous-phase catalyses and thus to one area of the more comprehensively defined two-phase catalyses. This restriction to the most recent and successful development of homogeneous catalysis takes account of the rapid technical advances in the process concept first described by Manassen et al. in 1973, which was followed in rapid succession in the 1970s by hesitant basic work and in 1984 by the first commercial implementation. This unusual sequence - industrial implementation in a 100000 tonnes per year oxo plant for the hydroformylation of propylene before years of time-consuming basic research to determine mechanistic, kinetic and other data - demonstrates clearly the great leap forward that this process development represented in the field of homogeneous catalysis and in solving the central problem mentioned earlier. Since then... 

Novel Catalysts. - One other promising option exists that might, in the long run, lead to a viable alternative to the above process concepts. Recent advances in biomimetic catalysis have resulted in the development of molecular catalysts that are selective in liquid-phase oxidation of C,-Cj aliphatic hydrocarbons under mild conditions. The catalysts have now been placed on suitable support materials for vapor-phase oxidation of methane to methanol. Significant laboratory research is still required on the properties and synthesis of these special molecular catalysts before process conditions, products, and yields can be defined, even on a laboratory scale. 

Investigation of alternatives (location costs, environment) process concept research, development, production... 

There is still a lot of research on concept evaluation, for example (Koziolek et al. 2010), but the proposed simple approach is usually sufficient, and improving its performance leads to a significant increase in the complexity and difficulty of the evaluation process. 

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