Chemical processing: -
This book considers the chemical processing of raw materials
into useful and profitable products .These products are used both as consumer
goods and as intermediates for further chemical and physical modification to
yield consumer products. About one quarter of the total chemical output is
utilized in the manufacture of other chemicals, so the chemical industry is
unique in being its single best customer.
Chemical
engineers, chemists, entrepreneurs, managers, and business people engaged in
chemical manufacture will find this overview of the process industries helpful
in understanding the current state of the art. Chemical engineering and
industry chemistry must both be critically concerned with profit, for without a
profit a business cannot operate. Rapid changes in methods characterize the
chemical business, which currently is responding to large changes in energy
costs; however, whenever the cost of a
chemical entity increases by as little as 10 percent, in many cases it risks
replacements as much as if it were a new substance. They characterized the
physical operations necessary for chemical manufacturing as “unit operations”
(Heat Transfer, Fluid flow, Distillation, Filtration, etc.). Although
originally they were largely descriptive, these unit operations have been the
object of vigorous study and can now be used with sound mathematical procedures
for plant design predictions. About 1930 P. H Groggins suggested a somewhat
similar approach to classifying chemical operations as “unit processes.”
Such processes include nitration, sulfonation, oxidation,
chlorination, etc. This concept has not proved as useful as the unit operations
idea nor have its concepts been reduced to mathematical procedures, but it is
frequently useful.
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