Citation:

GLASER, J. A. News: Process intensification. CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 14(2):155-160, (2012).

Impact/Purpose:

To inform the public

Description:

Conservation of materials and energy is a major objective to the philosophy of sustainability. Where production processes can be intensified to assist these objectives, significant advances have been developed to assist conservation as well as cost. Process intensification (PI) has four goals: “to maximize the effectiveness of intra- and intermolecular effects, to optimize the driving forces/maximize specific interfacial areas, and to maximize the synergistic effects of partial processes”. The development of intensified processes provides engineering potential to the chemical industry. PI can be conveniently analyzed on several levels: spatial domain, thermodynamic domain, functional domain, and temporal domain. Spatial considerations include molecular scale structures, structured reactors, and structured internals for mass transfer operations. The thermodynamic considerations involve energy in chemical reactors, and energy in separation systems. The functional considerations were identified as combining functions on the nanoscale in catalysis, and reactive and hybrid separations. Temporal considerations included changing the characteristic times of events, introducing dynamics (pulsing) in reactors, and periodicity in separations. Some of the domain aspects of PI are in their infancy and the authors offer considerations for each as to underscore future issues. Clearly, PI can be a major contributor to achieving green chemistry objectives.

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