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Chemical engineering equipment types, descriptions, design, selection

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See also Safety considerations in design, separation techniques and HYSYS.

General sources of information

• HEURISTICS (Also called Rules of Thumb and Experience-Based Rules)

· From Walas (Rules of Thumb in the Front Matter of Walas); (Same via AIChE student member site)

· Rules of Thumb for Chemical Engineers, 2^nd edition, Carl Branan (1998) Gulf Publishing Company: 660 R935 Clarkson Library.

· ChEResources Updated online.

· Applied Process Design for Chemical and Petrochemical Plants (Ch 0)

· HVAC

· Appendix E in “Plant Design and Economics for Chemical Engineers,” 5^th edition, by M.S. Peters, K.D. Timmerhaus and R.E. West (McGraw-Hill, NY, 2003).

· Appendix C in “Chemical Engineering Process Design and Economics: A Practical Guide,” 2^nd edition, by G.D. Ulrich and P.T. Vasudevan (Process Publishing, Durham, N.H., 2004)

• Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook (7th Edition)
• Chemical Process Equipment - Selection and Design (The best book for initial equipment selection, sizing and costing. By Walas. Has commercial reactor data, overall heat transfer coefficients)
• Handbook of Chemical Processing Equipment (edited by Clarkson alum)
• Process Engineering Equipment Handbook
• Thomas Net  Useful for locating suppliers of materials and equipment. Can often obtain information describing equipment. Unless you are a potential customer, however, you are unlikely to obtain prices. Also Thomas Register in the library: Ref 658.9058 T454

Materials Selection

HYSYS and UniSim : Note that the equipment palette in shows only some of the equipment that it can model.  Click on Flowsheet, Add Operation (or press F12) to see a complete list, part of which is shown at HYSYS/UniSim.

Reactors

Distillation, absorption, stripping columns

Heat Exchangers

Pressure changes, pumps, compressors and piping systems

Vessels

· Sizing of flash drums, surge tanks and accumulators

· Pressure vessel design

Liquid-liquid extraction

Use LLE heuristics to size equipment. See also Perry's chapter 15, particularly equations 15-65 and 15-66. The delta P for a LLE column is approximately the weight of the two phases in the column per cross-sectional area. Note that the pressure drop is not nearly as important for LLE as for distillation because liquid-liquid equilibria are not sensitive to pressure.

Instrumentation and control

• Instrumentation
• Process Control
• Control valve selection
• Process/Industrial Instruments and Controls Handbook (5th Edition)
• Design of Distillation Column Control Systems

Bioprocessing

• Green factories Biomanufacturing of pharmaceuticals; fermentation & filtration.
• Scaleup
• Example designs
• Encyclopedia of Bioprocess Technology - Fermentation, Biocatalysis, and Bioseparation
• Fermentation and Biochemical Engineering Handbook - Principles, Process Design, and Equipment
• Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Encyclopedia
• Biotechnological Innovations in Chemical Synthesis
• Separation and Purification Techniques in Biotechnology
• Separation Processes in the Food and Biotechnology Industries
• Separation and Purification Techniques in Biotechnology
• Separation Processes in Biotechnology: 660.6 S479
• Bioseparations: Downstream Processing for Biotechnology: 660.63 B453b
• Bioseparations Engineering: Principles, Practice, and Economics, M.R. Ladisch, Wiley, NY (2001) ISBN 0471244767.
• Methods of protein separation: 574.19245 M592
• Microfiltration and ultrafiltration : principles and applications: 660.284245 Z53m
• Membrane separations in biotechnology: 660.284245 M533
• Biotechnology Progress
• Biotechnology and Bioengineering
• Journal of Biotechnology
• Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology
• Trends in Biotechnology
• Protein Expression and Purification
• "Purifying Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies," (Must have first logged in to http://www.aiche.org/CEP/) Chemical Engineering Progress, S14 (May 2008)

• Bioreactor selection
• “Optimize Power Consumption in Aerobic Fermenters,” (Must have first logged in to http://www.aiche.org/CEP/) G.T. Benz, Chemical Engineering Progress (May 2003) 32-35.

Miscellaneous

• Free design manuals for mist eliminators, coalescers, column packing and trays; from ACS Industries.
• Liquid Filtration (2nd Edition)

Clarkson's Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

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Disclaimer: The material on these pages is intended for instructional purposes by Clarkson University students only. Neither Clarkson University nor Professor Wilcox are responsible for problems caused by using this information.

Last updated July 2, 2009. Comments and corrections should be sent to Professor William R. Wilcox

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