Scale-up from laboratory

Scaling Up from Laboratory or Pilot-Plant Data. 14-19... 

It would be desirable to reinterpret existing data for commercial tower packings to extract the individual values of the interfacial area a and the mass-transfer coefficients fcc and /c in order to facilitate a more general usage of methods for scaling up from laboratory experiments. Some progress in this direction has afready been made, as discussed later in this section. In the absence of such data, it is necessary to operate a pilot plant or a commercial absorber to obtain kc, /c , and a as described by Ouwerkerk (op. cit.). 

Direct scale-up from laboratory to commercial size often possible. 

Cassettes Cassette is a term used to describe two different cross-flow membrane devices. The less-common design is a usually large stack of membrane separated by a spacer, with flow moving in parallel across the membrane sheets. This variant is sometimes referred to as a flat spiral, since there is some similarity in the way feed and permeate are handled. The more common cassette has long been popular in the pharmaceutical and biotechnical field. It too is a stack of flat-sheet membranes, but the membrane is usually connected so that the feed flows across the membrane elements in series to achieve higher conversion per pass. Their popularity stems from easy direct scale-up from laboratory to plant-scale equipment. Their limitation is that fluid management is inherently very limited and inefficient. Both types of cassette are very compact and capable of automated manufacture. 

This approach to describing centrifuge performance has become known as the sigma theory . It provides a means for comparing the performance of sedimentation centrifuges and for scaling up from laboratory and pilot scale tests see Ambler (1952) and Trowbridge (1962). 

Diffusivities in liquids are comparatively low, a factor of 10 lower than in gases, so it is probable in most industrial examples that they are diffusion rate controlled. One consequence is that L-L. reactions are not as temperature sensitive as ordinary chemical reactions, although the effect of temperature rise on viscosity and droplet size sometimes can result in substantial rate increase. On the whole, in the presnt state of the art, the design of L-L reactors must depend on scale-up from laboratory or pilot plant work. 

Experts also disagree on how easily electrochemical processes can be scaled up from laboratory to plant scale. Some see electrochemical processes limited in that the scale is only the two-dimensions based on the electrode surface area, whereas conventional catalytic processes are scaled in three dimensions based on the volume of the reaction unit [48],... 

Tables 2 and 3 show an antibody purification process scale-up from laboratory scale (1 mL) to intermediate scale (500 mL) to large scale of 10-85 L column volumes, maintaining the column bed height constant. Product quality and biocontaminant levels were maintained throughout the scale-up, though operational flow rates were significantly changed, demonstrating the consistency of the overall purification process. Thorough analysis of each coliunn performance is essential in order to sustain the process robustness at different scales of operation.

Although many types of pellet dosage forms have been introduced in the marketplace, a greater understanding is needed of the role of excipients, equipment, process variables, and controls involved in the pelletization process and those that govern successful scale-up from laboratory to... 

In scale-up from laboratory quantities (up to 10 kg) to production batches (300 kg and up), bed depth increases significantly. The most notable consequence is an increase in finished product bulk density, typically in the range of 15% to 20%. In some instances, this is a disadvantage (if product is packed by volume and a low density is desired). However, granule strength is usually greater as a result of the decreased interstitial void space. 

Scale-up from laboratory test cells to EV module is the next challenge for the LPB technology. There are three general areas which need to be addressed when considering scale-up, namely (1) raw materials, (2) component fabrication, and (3) cell and battery construction. In general, the raw materials employed in the various forms of lithium polymer batteries can easily be obtained in large quantities. The key areas are the lithium metal foil and the active positive material. Lithium metal foils are commercially available in a range of thicknesses down to 50 pm. However, thinner... 

Safety factors for scale up from laboratory leaf tests are difficult to generalize. On the basis of pilot plant work, adjustments of 11-21% are made to plate-and-frame filter areas or rates, and 14-20% to continuous rotary filters, according to Table 1.4. 

Scaling Up from Laboratory Data Laboratory experimental techniques offer an efficient and cost-effective route to develop commercial absorption designs. For example, Ouwerkerk (Hydrocarbon Process., April 1978, 89-94) revealed that both laboratory and small-scale pilot plant data were employed as the basis for the design of an 8.5-m (28-ft) diameter commercial Shell Claus off-gas treating (SCOT) tray-type absorber. Ouwerkerk claimed that the cost of developing comprehensive design procedures can be minimized, especially in the development of a new process, by the use of these modern techniques. 

Thus, the specific cooling capacity of reaction vessels varies by approximately two orders of magnitude, when scaling up from laboratory scale to production scale. This has a great practical importance, because if an exothermal effect is not detected at laboratory scale, this does not mean that the reaction is safe at a larger scale. At laboratory scale, the cooling capacity may be as high as 1000 W kg"1, whereas at plant scale it is only in the order of 20-50 W kg 1 (Table 2.5). This also means that the heat of reaction can be measured only in calorimetric devices and cannot be deduced from the measurement of a temperature difference between the reaction medium and the coolant. 

In scaling up from laboratory size to large-scale production, the same chemistry takes place but the equipment used becomes far more complex. The capital costs are much larger and the financial consequences of a failed batch will run into thousands of dollars. There are several major components in the production unit ... 

Catalytic reaction engineering is a scientific discipline which bridges the gap between the fundamentals of catalysis and its industrial application. Starting from insight into reaction mechanisms provided by catalytic chemists and surface scientists, the rate equations are developed which allow a quantitative description of the effects of the reaction conditions on reaction rates and on selectivities for desired products. The study of intrinsic reaction kinetics, i.e. those determined solely by chemical events, belongs to the core of catalytic reaction engineering. Very close to it lies the study of the interaction between physical transport and chemical reaction. Such interactions can have pronounced effects on the rates and selectivities obtained in industrial reactors. They have to be accounted for explicitly when scaling up from laboratory to industrial dimensions. 

Discs range in size from laboratory models 30 cm in diameter up to production units of 10 meters in diameter with throughputs of 100 ton/hr. Figure 20-82 shows throughput capacities for discs of varying diameter for different applications and formulation feed densities. When scaling up from laboratory or pilot tests it is usual to keep the... 

Other The cassette (Fig. 22-54), a modification of a plate-and-frame device that is favored because of the ease of scale-up from laboratory to small plants is widely used in pharmaceutical microfiltration and ultrafiltration. An entirely different module also called a cassette is used in the MF of water. There are a host of other clever module designs in use, and new ones appear frequently. 

Sieve tray extractors are popular in the chemical and petrochemical industries. The trays minimize axial mixing, which results in good scale-up from laboratory data. The dispersed phase drops re-form at the each perforation, rise (or fall) near their terminal velocity, and then coalesce underneath (or above) the tray, as shown in Figure 14.14(d). The coalesced layer is important to prevent axial mixing of the continuous phase and to allow re-formation of the drops, which enhances mass transfer. The continuous phase passes... 

Baruah, G.L., Nayak, A., and Belfort, G., Scale-up from laboratory microfiltration to a ceramic pilot plant Design and performance, J. Membr. Sci., 274, 56, 2006. 

Desikan, S. Anderson, S.R. Meenan, P.A. Toma, P.H. Crystallization challenges in drug development scale-up from laboratory to pilot plant and beyond. Curr. Opin. Drug Discovery Develop. 2000, 3 (6), 723-733. 

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