Chemical Product Engineering: Research and Educational Challenges

Abstract

Chemical engineering has a long tradition and proven methodology of process design with emphasis on commodity chemicals (large quantity, continuous production of low added-value molecules). Nevertheless the chemical industries nowadays are increasingly involved in specialty chemicals (small quantity, batch production, high added value) as well as formulated products (complex mixtures targeted to confer specific end-use properties). In addition to process design and optimization which are the major concerns of commodity production, the specialty and formulated product industries face also new technical as well as marketing challenges (time to market, smart product design, choice or adaptation of generic, not dedicated plants etc.). Moreover, in place of the classical unit operations found in commodity production (distillation, absorption, extraction etc.), more exotic operations such as emulsification, spray cooling, extrusion, coating and granulation are relevant to formulated product elaboration. This situation calls for an examination of the possibilities and limitations of chemical engineering methodology within a product oriented framework. After a short historical overview of chemical product industry, this paper tentatively identifies some of the actual and future challenges of what is termed chemical product engineering, from the research and education points of view.