Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.44, No.16, 6233-6245, 2005
A visual approach for integrating chemistry research and process design: Separation process with crystallization steps
This article presents a procedure for integrating chemistry research and process design for a crystallization based separation process starting from a chemist's recipe. First, the recipe is represented on a composition space, providing a visual display of mass balances and phases encountered in the recipe. Second, the separation boundaries are identified and verified on a separation boundary map. This sets the stage for improving the process in view of the regions and boundaries limiting the degree of separation. Next, kinetic issues are considered to ensure product quality. Finally, possibilities of new recipes are explored, and the whole development cycle can be repeated if necessary. Examples are provided to demonstrate the approach.