As part of our ongoing work on modular process intensification, the RAPID Manufacturing Institute often oversees technology scale-up projects. Within the chemical process industries (CPI), it’s well known that scaling up a process can be risky and have unexpected results. Given that process scale-up is usually not taught at universities, the engineers working on scale-up often have little to no experience in that area. As a result, many common scale-up learnings are rediscovered, causing expensive and lengthy delays. This article aims to share a few of the lessons that RAPID has learned about scale-up.
Unfiltered communication. Process scale-up can be thought of as a series of knowledge transfers as the project moves through the different scales (lab to pilot plant to demo or commercial). This knowledge transfer can be unknowingly filtered by the person providing it. For example, a chemist could see something in the lab, such as a small amount of foaming, and deem it not important to mention. However, this knowledge is valuable for piloting since foaming can increase with scale as a result of mixing differences. It’s best to have the scale-up engineer observe a process in the lab prior to scale-up since an engineer and a chemist could watch the same lab reaction and see different things. Likewise, clear,...
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