Chemical Process Development & Scale-Up

Scaling-up a chemical process from lab to manufacturing gives useful results only with accurate heat transfer coefficients. Measuring the jacket and reactor temperature (during the release of a well-defined amount of heat) allows researchers to accurately compute the thermal resistance which is used to model the heat transfer and make critical predictions for reactors at larger scale. Reaction calorimetry is essential to determine parameters that impact the heat transfer and the heat transfer coefficients to develop models to maximize the bandwidth of a manufacturing plant. 

Mixing is the reduction or elimination of inhomogeneity of phases that are either miscible or immiscible. Process scale-up and optimization require that the impact of mixing on the reaction rate be quantified. Automated, controlled experiments can be run in parallel in a laboratory reactor system to establish a mass transfer correlation, and provide a means to quickly adjust the gas/ liquid interface area and reactor volume. This achieves the desired conditions required for the scale-up or scale-down of a process.

Chemists working in chemical synthesis discover and develop innovative chemical reactions and processes.

Optimization and scale-up of crystallization and precipitation to produce a product that consistently meets purity, yield, form and particle size specifications can be one of the biggest challenges of process development.

In situ chemical reaction kinetics studies provide an improved understanding of reaction mechanism and pathway by providing concentration dependences of reacting components in real-time. Continuous data over the course of a reaction allows for the calculation of rate laws with fewer experiments due to the comprehensive nature of the data.  Reaction Progression Kinetics Analysis (RPKA) uses in situ data under synthetically relevant concentrations and captures information throughout the whole experiment ensuring that the complete reaction behavior can be accurately described.

How can I be sure that my chemical process is safe? It is critical to understand the risks inherent in moving a chemical process to a larger scale before manufacturing begins. The use of reaction calorimetry is an essential part of process development studies, providing detailed information about the rate of heat production. This allows researchers to optimize the temperature and dosing profiles to maximize process safety at all times, and reduce to a minimum the risks involved.

Changing the scale or mixing conditions in a crystallizer can directly impact the kinetics of the crystallization process and the final crystal size. Heat and mass transfer effects are important to consider for cooling and anti-solvent systems respectively, where temperature or concentration gradients can produce inhomogeneity in the prevailing level of supersaturation.