(371e) Chemical Process Development – Even for Reaction Engineers, it Ain’t Just Kinetics

In his classic textbook, Scott Fogler characterizes reaction engineering with six fundamental pillars that support six overarching rooftops. Each pillar participates in the observed chemical reaction. In the rush to meet business imperatives, it is too easy to focus on the expected operating conditions and not consider how the pillars behave beyond that window. We will review a number of real (but sanitized) industrial processes where use of the appropriate tools and methodologies led to real process understanding that translated to improved process profitability.