Minor hazards in the laboratory could turn out to be major safety concerns as the process is scaled up. Follow this guidance to ensure each stage of scaleup is safe.
▲Figure 1. As processes move from the bench to demonstration-size units, the safety risks change and vary.
Scaleup is a critical part of process design, but movement from laboratory-scale equipment to laboratory units, pilot plants, and demonstration units creates numerous technical and safety challenges (Figure 1). During scaleup, research staff discuss technical concerns, such as scale-up ratios, modeling effects and effectiveness, and contaminant buildup. However, they often overlook, down-play, or ignore safety challenges, as hazards may seem inconsequential at such a small scale.
This thinking is flawed, because quite a lot can go wrong even at small scales — much of it unexpected and, hence, not planned for and unmitigated. This article provides some safety advice for scaleup...
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