Value-added process industries

A range of emulsions, foams and suspensions can be found in the manufacturing/ value-added process industries. Some examples are given in Table 12.1. Examples for related areas can be found in Tables 9.1 (environment), 10.1 (minerals), and 11.1 (petroleum). 

These novel organic polymers were not developed solely for the CW or BW treatment market but are for much wider application. These same value-adding process additives are regularly incorporated into products for industrial and domestic cleaning, concrete, pulp and paper, metal finishing, paints and surface coatings, wastewater, seawater distillation, drilling muds, secondary oil-recovery, plastics extrusion, fibers, rubbers, and a host of other areas. 

Guo said China s first priorities are to ensure that enough food is available, and that the country is open to new approaches to ensure its food security. In the process, China would like to increase industrialization and value-added processing in its rural regions154. 

Higher market prices for major commodities such as paprika, vanilla, ginger, bay leaves and spice mixtures resulted in an upward value trend by 4.6% from 2003 to 2004, with a stabilized import volume. There was a growing trend towards the trade of processed spices, which fetched higher prices. The increasing demand for value-added processing of spices, such as capsicum and ginger, offers business opportunities for the food and extraction industries in international markets (International Trade Centre, 2006). 

Electrodialysis. Electro dialytic membrane process technology is used extensively in Japan to produce granulated—evaporated salt. Filtered seawater is concentrated by membrane electro dialysis and evaporated in multiple-effect evaporators. Seawater can be concentrated to a product brine concentration of 200 g/L at a power consumption of 150 kWh/1 of NaCl (8). Improvements in membrane technology have reduced the power consumption and energy costs so that a high value-added product such as table salt can be produced economically by electro dialysis. However, industrial-grade salt produced in this manner caimot compete economically with the large quantities of low cost solar salt imported into Japan from Austraha and Mexico. 

The principal industrial appHcation for isobutyl alcohol is as a direct solvent replacement for 1-butanol. It is also used as a process solvent in the flavor and fragrance, pharmaceutical, and pesticide industries. The maximum employment of isobutyl alcohol was in the mid-1980s when it had a distinct price advantage over 1-butanol (10). More recently, however, with increased demand for other value added derivatives of isobutyraldehyde, the price differential between isobutyl and -butyl alcohols has diminished resulting in a switching back by some consumers to 1-butanol. 

FIG. 20-62 Comparisons of levels of analysis of chemical reaction and size-enlargement processes. Reprinted from Granulation and Coating Technologies for High-Value-Added Industries, Ennis and Litster (1996) with permission of E G Associates. All rights reserved. 

Catalytic hydration and alcoholation of unsaturated compounds such as alkenes or alkynes would be a high value-adding step in the synthesis of compounds of complicated structure as well as in the large-scale production of industrially useful simple compounds. The activation of the O-H bond of water, alcohol, or carboxylic acid by transihon metals is relevant to a variety of such catalytic processes. 

The principal considerations involved in design of a process-scale chromatographic purification include scalability, reproducibility, safety, and validatability. Cost factors, however, must by necessity enter into all industrial decisions. Due to the high value-added nature of most biopharmaceuticals, this cost factor is driven by throughput, rather than by capital investment cost. 

Catalysts are so important in chemical industry that combinatorial-type approaches will certainly be utilized as tools in the identification and optimization of both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts. These are, in many cases, high value-added, commercially important materials. In any research activity it makes sense to remove any choke points that impede progress. However, many engineering considerations are important in producing commercial catalytic processes thus, combinatorial-type approaches are unlikely to be a panacea. Still, a variety of unanticipated discoveries may result from various efforts that are under way. 

The petrochemical and chemical industries are the traditional industries for IR analyzers. The needs are extremely diverse and the versatility associated with process IR spectral measurements make the analyzers a good fit. Products manufactured by the petrochemical and chemical industries range from commodity materials (basic chemicals and raw materials) to fully formulated or compounded end-use products. Value-added products (formulated products) often require an advanced spectral analyzer, such as a process FTIR, whereas commodity chemicals are often served by a traditional IR photometer. 

The chemical industry typically involves much more high technology but smaller reactors because one usually desires to produce a single molecule as an intermediate to make a particular product. These molecules usually can be sold for a much greater price than gasoline so the extra value added in the petrochemical processing industry justifies the increased sophistication and cost of these reactors. The costs of separating the desired product from reactants and undesired products can dominate the economics of petrochemical processes. 

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