(76b) Modular Process Development (versus Designing Modular Process Equipment)

Modular design is a term often used to describe modular equipment mounted on a skid or framework so that it can be constructed remotely and moved to a job site. Recently, this has been extended into the concept of “numbering up”, in which modular designs are repeated to reconstruct the same process so that it can be built and operated in multiple locations or in multiple trains.

This talk will instead focus on the concept of “modular process development”. An ongoing demonstration project is taking the concept of operating modular, skid mounted unit operations on a pilot plant scale so that they can be quickly rearranged to validate process designs without having to build new pilot plants from scratch or to make major modifications to existing facilities. This concept is intended to speed the process of moving from bench chemistry into piloting and through validation. The skids are large enough to provide scale-up data, and if the production requirement is not large, the same skids could be used to quickly begin manufacturing specialized chemicals. Challenges encountered in this effort include the need to design equipment flexible enough to handle a variety of process conditions without understanding exactly what chemistry and process conditions it could see.

The concept for this project was derived from the COVID pandemic, with the focus being on process development when critical raw materials must be developed quickly and moved to production in a short timeframe. The project is funded by a NIST grant to the AIChE RAPID institute. AVN Corporation is leading the skid design, construction, and demonstration along with accompanying laboratory work for demonstration chemistries. Cheryl Teich, of Teich Process Development, has worked to document best practices in process development, and Nima Yazdanpanah of Procegence has provided guidance in the identification of chemicals of interest.