Process Design Trends

oday, we are witnessing important new developments that go beyond “traditional” chemical engineering. Engineers at many universities and industrial research centers are working on novel equipment and techniques that potentially could transform our concept of chemical plants and lead to compact, safe, energy-efficient, and environment-friendly sustainable processes. These developments share a common focus on “process intensification” — an approach that has been around for quite some time but has truly emerged only in the past few years as a special and interesting discipline of chemical engineering. In this article, we take a closer look at process intensification. We define what it involves, discuss its dimensions and structure, and review recent developments in process-intensifying devices and methods.