This paper presents a review on the design of batch plants where both the grassroots and the retrofit design problems are analysed. Two types of plants are considered, the multi-product and the multipurpose plants. The characterisation of the design problem is made and the key decisions and elements involved are identified. Limitations and gaps in the existing published approaches are discussed. Although, a considerable number of studies have appeared in the last 15 years there is still a need for further development on the models generalisation and applications. Further attention should be given to the multi-objective design where different objectives are present at the design level. Great investment is also required on the solution methods so as real case problems can be solved in reasonable computational time. The paper concludes with the identification of future research challenges in the design and retrofit of batch plants. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.