All the Buzz About Process Intensification and Energy Efficiency Through Dow Lens.

As the world’s population rises and new economies emerge, society requires novel solutions to meet its most basic needs, including energy, water, housing, food, health, and transportation. However, limited natural resources entail their efficient use while simultaneously enhancing the quality of life of current and future generations. In this respect, process intensification is becoming an immensely important tool to achieve overall sustainability of the chemical process industry and the reduction of our energy footprint through controlled plant size.

This talk will focus on two interesting examples pertaining efficient specialty polymer processing as well as efficient synthesis of specialty epoxy through appropriate reactor design. Specifically, single phase solution polymerization renders itself aptly for overall energy reduction by applying process intensification principles. In particular, energy intensive solvent recovery after polymerization results in high energy foot print. Selection of appropriate solvent to lower polymer solubility and form two phases i.e. polymer phase and solvent phase provides an energy efficient alternative. The heavier polymer phase can be separated using a decantation step after polymerization to remove up to 50% of the solvent leading to lower solvent separation costs. Criteria for solvent selection and its influence on process thermodynamics along with impact of processing conditions on important polymer properties will be discussed.

The second example will focus on development of a continuous process for specialty epoxies for lowering the energy footprint. In particular, batch processing of specialty epoxies, though beneficial in controlling temperature of exothermic reactions results in longer processing time and undesirable side products. Manipulating the reactor surface area to volume ratio results in tighter control of reactor temperature and enables safe continuous processing with up to ten-fold reduction in processing time. Development of continuous reactor designs for epoxy processing through modeling and experimental validation will be presented.