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Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2002, 41, 1920-1924

Process Intensification
The chemical process industry is sometimes seen as
a mature industry, grown evolutionary to an essentially
ideal constitution. In this view, to ensure good profits
and stable business, it is sufficient to extend it with
some novel branches, such as life sciences or performance materials sectors. Is this picture based on reality?
We do not believe that this is the case. When we
consider the world with its increasing need for space,
safety, healthy environment, and economic growth, it
is evident that all sectors of production have to critically
assess their impact in these respects. A parallel might
be drawn between the chemical industry and other
production sectors, such as agriculture, tanneries, or
automotive industry. Had the space they use grown
proportional with their production, the impact would be
dramatic. In all of these sectors, intensification has
occurred to a large extent. One might say that, in the
society new technological sectors always arise, while the
total capacity of the world is constant. As a result,
traditional production sectors have to constantly decrease their share in the natural resources, including
land utilization. For the chemical process industry, this
implies that a decrease in size and an increase in
efficiency are a must. Of course, the scale-up in chemicals manufacturing has been impressive. Although the
production volumes have increased dramatically, the
space used only modestly increased. Imagine, however,
that we could give back to the society 90% of the space
we currently use for production. Because many petrochemical complexes lie in areas of high natural value,
we could really mean a lot to the society. Think of the
industrial complexes built in harbor areas by estuaries.
Should these complexes shrink, both sea life and tourism would benefit enormously!
The above is, of course, a too simple picture. Space is
not the only criterion. The direction in which we want
to move leads toward a sustainable society. The question
is how to move. Chemical engineers are inclined to be
realistic and to define achievable goals. We believe that
a transformation of the chemical industrial sector into
one with much less impact on the environment is
possible. A logical aim is to replace big is the best by
small is beautiful (Figure 1).
Problems with Definition: One Target, Many
Ways. An often used definition of the term process
intensification is the strategy for achieving dramatic
reductions in the size of the plant at a given production
volume. Other researchers active in the field define
process intensification in different ways. Two words,
however, are common to practically all process intensification definitions. One of these words is innovative:
Process intensification is characterized by the novelty,
and in this sense presents a contradistinction to the
conventionalism in chemical engineering and process
design. The other common word, substantial, clearly
defines the target of process intensification. That target
is not to squeeze another few percent from an existing
plant; the target is to make a quantum leap in process
and plant efficiency (with respect to space/time/energy/
* Corresponding author. Phone: +31 46 4760820. Fax: +31
46 4760809. E-mail: andrzej.stankiewicz@dsm.com.

raw materials/environment, etc.). Process intensification

is about revolution rather than evolution.1
The ways to reach the above target are many, and so
many are the faces of process intensification. It comprises novel types of equipment (hardware), as well as
novel processing techniques and process/plant development methods (software). Among the process intensification examples one can see developments and ideas
that may drastically change the face of the chemical
industry in the 21st century. Many of such developments and ideas are already on their way. One of them
is the so-called heat exchanger (HEX) reactor, a reactor
that was shown to be able to decrease the processing
time in a fine chemical process of Hickson and Welch
from 18 h to 15 min2 and to decrease the byproduct
formation in one of the ICI Acrylics processes by ca.
75%.3 Another one, the so-called in-line monolithic
reactor, offered a decrease of the equipment volume in
one of DSM processes by almost 2 orders of magnitude,
by placing a structured catalyst in a pipeline (Figure
2).4 In micro heat exchangers and microreactors heattransfer coefficients exceeding 20 000 W/m2K are
reached, values that could never be reached with the
conventional equipment. The spinning disk reactor
investigated in one of SmithKline Beecham processes
offered a 99.9% reduction in reaction time, 99% reduction in inventory, and 93% reduction in impurity level.5
The rotating packed bed (HiGee) technology allowed
Chinese engineers to replace 30 m high vacuum desorption towers with ca. 1.5 m diameter rotating strippers
in the deaeration of water at Shengli Oil Field, Sandong
Province, P.R. China.6
The Industry: Opportunities and Barriers. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, it is just industry, not
academia, where process intensification has its origins.
It was Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) where first
investigations of rotating HiGee equipment for separation purposes took place.7,8 It was Shell who first
patented a static mixer9 that was later so successfully
commercialized by Sulzer and a number of other manufacturers, marking a quantum leap in mixing technology. It was the same Sulzer who developed and commercialized the distillation plant for hydrogen peroxide,
consisting, in fact, of a single integrated unit.10 Another
industrial company, Eastman Chemical, became famous
for the development and commercialization of a highly
integrated methyl acetate process, in which the number
of pieces of equipment has been reduced from 28 to 3
(Figure 3). The Eastman process is now widely regarded
as a textbook example of a task integration-based
process synthesis.11 Another company, Dow Chemical,
has recently applied the HiGee technology on a commercial scale in their hypochlorous acid process.12
The opportunities that process intensification offers
to a chemical company lie primarily in six areas: costs,
safety, compactness, controlled well-defined conditions,
time to the market, and company image.
Process intensification leads to substantially cheaper
processes, particularly in terms of land costs (much
higher production capacity and/or number of products
per unit of manufacturing area), investment costs

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Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 41, No. 8, 2002 1921

(smaller equipment, reduced piping, etc.), costs of raw

materials (higher yields/selectivities), costs of utilities
(energy in particular), and costs of waste-stream processing (less waste in general).
Also, process intensification may dramatically increase the safety of chemical processes. It is obvious that
smaller is safer. Tragedies such as Flixborough and
Bhopal show clearly how disastrous consequences may
arise from the large volume of process vessels when
something goes wrong. A study done at AIChE showed
that methyl isocyanate (MIC), the intermediate that was
released at Bhopal, could be generated and immediately
converted to final products in continuous reactors that
contained a total inventory of less than 10 kg of MIC13
(in reality ca. 41 tons of MIC were released in Bhopal,
killing almost 4000 people). However, process intensification offers not only smaller equipment but also much
better possibilities for keeping processes under control,
for instance, by extremely efficient heat removal from
exothermic reactions.
To fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries,
process intensification may offer a substantial shortening of the time to market, for instance, by developing a
continuous laboratory-scale process, which could be used
directly as the commercial-scale process. One must not
forget that the liquid flow of only 1 ml/s means in the
continuous operation ca. 30 tons/year, which is a quite
reasonable capacity for many pharmaceuticals. In such
a case process development takes place only once, with
no scale-up via a pilot plant to the industrial scale. Also,
all administrative (FDA) procedures involved in the
legal approval of the production technology take place
only once: the laboratory-scale technology is the commercial technology. In consequence, start of the production is greatly speeded up, and the patent lifetime of
the drug can be much more effectively (read: longer)
utilized.
Last but not least, process intensification, deeply
anchored in the philosophy of sustainable development,
in safe and environment-friendly processing, presents
perhaps the simplest and the most obvious key to the
improved image of a chemical company, necessary to
ensure public support for its activities. Presently, in the
United States only the tobacco industry and the nuclear
energy sector appear to have a worse reputation than
the chemical industry. The situation in Europe is
probably not very much different.
Yet, despite all of these potential advantages and a
number of successful commercial applications of process
intensification principles, there are still several important barriers hindering deeper changes in the chemical
process industry:
Barrier 1. The strategy of chemical process industry
growth in the global economy of the present times is
mainly based on mergers, splits, takeovers, and changes
in the structure of the product portfolio (shift toward
high added value products). It is basically a strategy of
growth via trade, not via R&D. Shareholders valuedriven companies are interested in reaching clearly
defined short-term business targets rather than in
investing funds in more risky long-term development
projects. Corporate funding is greatly reduced (along
with corporate R&D organizations), and opportunities
are primarily sought in cost reductions via optimization
of the primary business work processes or via debottlenecking of the existing plants. (N.B.: Many companies
speak about outsourcing of the more fundamental

research and carrying it out in the academic environment, but so far the universities do not sense an
increased demand for such research projects from the
industry.)
Barrier 2. The R&D effort in chemical companies is
primarily focused on the new products (chemistry) and
much less on the new manufacturing methods (chemical
engineering). Chemical manufacturers are not interested in developing the novel types of equipment or
processing techniques. It is simply not their key business. On the other hand, equipment manufacturers and
engineering companies are not sufficiently active in the
field of process intensification.
Barrier 3. Many novel apparatuses and processing
methods are not yet proven on the industrial scale. It
is well-known that an average plant manager in the
chemical industry wants his plant to be second best
only, not the best. He/she typically tries to avoid the
risks involved in the application of the equipment or
processing method that has not yet been tested on the
full scale elsewhere.
Barrier 4. Chemical engineers in industry are not
familiar with process intensification and are often not
aware of the emerging novel types of equipment and
processing methods. Process intensification is not taught
within regular chemical engineering curricula, which
are still based on the unit-operation, onionskin methodology of process development (first the reactor, then
separation/purification, then heat integration, then
process control, safety, etc.). This methodology, standard
for petrochemical and bulk chemical processes, has
obvious limitations when it comes to modern product
engineering and technology.
Barrier 5. Standard tools and methodology for modern process development from the laboratory to the
commercial scale are often missing. A chemist developing a new fine chemical process will surely stick to the
traditional, batch stirred-tank-based, cooking recipe
route, simply because this is the only standard development tool available. We still do not have any highly
efficient continuous reactors as standard laboratory
equipment, which could be easily and quickly set up and
scaled up, nor do we have reliable methodology for doing
it. (Of course, additional factors play here a role, such
as the chemists lack of interest in fluid dynamics and
especially kinetics which are so vital for rational reactor
design.)
Barrier 6. Many of the novel equipment and processing methods are of radically different nature, and there
is lack of simulation and scale-up capability (experience
and lack of models). Also, there is a lack of early
screening methods to qualify these novel technologies
(lack of tools for early economic and process evaluation).
The good news is that many of the above-mentioned
obstacles can be removed or at least minimized, and
universities, along with nonacademic research centers,
can play an important role in this process.
Universities. The mission of the university can be
described in a variety of ways. The minimum is the
contribution to the development of novel methods in
production and novel products. Keywords are creativity,
innovation, long-term R&D, science push, and market
pull. For the university, a wealth of subjects can be
considered for research programs. For several reasons,
often evolutionary (small-step and low-risk) subjects are
chosen. We would like to challenge the university groups
to select high-risk and high-reward subjects. Process

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Figure 1. Illustration of a school excursion to a chemical plant

in our times (top) and, hopefully, in the times of our grandchildren
(bottom). Here, we have tried to depict, in a somewhat exaggerated
way, the required mentality change in the chemical process
industry. The old paradigm: we are great because we are big
must be replaced by we are great because we are most efficient
(with respect to space, time, energy, safety, environment, etc.).
The two pictures hanging on the wall in the lower drawing
symbolize two possible ways the chemical process industry can
go: the way of technological progress (chip, right) or the way of
stagnation (blast furnace, left).

intensification is absolutely one of them. Structured

catalysts and reactors allow rational designs resulting
in breakthroughs. Reactors can be developed where the
heat produced is removed at the scale of the catalyst
layer, leading to a superior reactor performance. Here,
one enters the world of microreactors, HEX reactors, etc.
Both simulation studies and demonstration are called
for. We expect many positive surprises in the future.
Multifunctional reactors are already a trend, although
simulations are emphasized and experimental data are
scarce. Not a perfect setting for discoveries! The combination of simulation and experimental work in this
area is most rewarding. Fortunately, some groups do
practice this.
Can we conclude then that the university will be the
cradle of exciting new findings in process intensification? Also here barriers are present. Because of decreasing enrollments, universities practically all over the
world are confronted with reductions in funding, staff,
etc. This can easily lead to a retreat to a safe but not
spectacular research: more of the same results in highquality papers with a minimal impact on society. Also,
the attitude of the industry with the fascination for

short-term results does not help. Fortunately, many

modern university groups are entrepreneurial in science
and technology research. Despite the present circumstances, they succeed in attracting funding and, more
importantly, good people, allowing the building of challenging research programs.
Universities do not only play a role in research. After
all, it is teaching that is their core business. Courses
aimed at innovative process and product development,
including various elements of process intensification, are
at least being considered in many places. Modernization
of chemical engineering curricula is necessary. It may
sound very obvious, but we will never succeed in
transforming the chemical industry at the speed we
want if we supply it with young people having no
understanding of the process intensification principles
and being unaware of the latest developments in the
field!
Summary: the Need for Change and the Third
Paradigm. Since the late 1980s, a discussion has been
going on regarding the changing paradigms in chemical
engineering.14 Six years ago, a remarkable paper on that
subject was published by the late Professor Gianni
Astarita and Julio Ottino,15 followed by another widely
cited comment paper written by James Wei.16 The
authors distinguished two paradigms in the history of
our discipline. The first one, the unit operations
paradigm, was initiated by Arthur D. Little and presented for the first time in the famous Principles of
Chemical Engineering textbook by Walker, Lewis, and
McAdams (1923). As Wei wrote it, the essence of the
first paradigm was to study the major equipment for
chemical manufacturing, including its construction and
performance. In the early 1960s, this first paradigm was
pushed aside and replaced by the second one, the
transport phenomena paradigm marked with the
publication of the textbook Transport Phenomena by
Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot (1960). However, after
years of successes, also the second paradigm appeared
to lose its potential. As the late Professor Jacques
Villermaux said in his speech at the 5th World Congress
of Chemical Engineering, the second paradigm did not
favor creativity, invention of new processes, or design
and manufacture of new products to meet the market
needs and eventually led to a dead end.17 Clearly, the
time has come for a change. However, what will be the
core of the new third paradigm of chemical engineering?
Will it be new business or new product research? Will
it be, as Lanny Schmidt calls it, the Bio-Nano-Info?
Or maybe the green engineering? Will there be a place
for process intensification? There is a lot of discussion
going on around this subject.18
James Wei sees the possible core of the third paradigm in product engineering.19 We share this view to a
great extent. We think, however, that product engineering alone will not be enough to form a solid fundament
for the new chemical engineering paradigm. We believe
strongly that further developments in what to make?
(product engineering) must proceed parallel to the
developments in how to make? (process engineering).
Process intensification shows clearly how large a growth
and innovation potential process engineering still has.
Besides, one has to remember that there are still sectors
in the chemical process industry in which product
engineering plays only a marginal role (e.g., petrochemicals). The new chemical engineering paradigm must not

Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 41, No. 8, 2002 1923

Figure 2. Potential of process intensification. The conventional system can be replaced by the almost 100 times smaller in-line monolithic
reactor.4 The reactor is so small that it could even fit under the operators desk!

Figure 3. Methyl acetate plant of Eastman Chemical: a wonderful example of process intensification via process synthesis!

omit the issues that are important to those sectors. It

must not run out on its own children!
Any paradigm nowadays, to survive, must be based
on a broader social acceptance. Lack of social acceptance
for our third paradigm would mean the lack of young
people willing to study chemical engineering and, as a
result, the death of the paradigm, if not of our profession. Manufacturing of new products, however sophisticated and functional they might be, with the present
equipment and methods generating tens of kilograms
to tons of waste per every kilogram of those products
(as currently happens in manufacturing of many pharmaceuticals), will not be accepted by the sustainable
society.
So, before we all set up the third paradigm for
chemical engineering, we should go back in time and
revisit the first paradigm. We should take a critical look
at the equipment, its construction, and performance,
reexamine the existing unit operations, and start asking
ourselves questions. We should, for instance, ask ourselves if batch-operated stirred-tank reactors are really
the solution for manufacturing of fine chemicals and
pharmaceuticals. We should ask ourselves if modern
biotechnology really requires gigantic bubble-column

fermenters. We should ask ourselves if random catalyst

systems are the solution for heterogeneous catalysis. We
should ask ourselves if the sequential, unit-operationbased process design is the solution for the optimum
plant. We should ask ourselves if todays sky-scraping
towers are the solution for distillation or absorption
operations. We should ask ourselves if thousands of
kilometers of pipelines should only serve for sending
gases and liquids or whether they could not be made
functional and be used for reactions or separations.
Such questions are many. Few of them can be
answered right now, but only by posing such questions
may we achieve the rebirth of creativity and innovation
in chemical engineering research. Moreover, it is clear
that some trends in technology tend to lead to deintensification rather than intensification. This applies
not only to biotechnology but also to the energy sector.
Renewable energy sources require often extremely large
space; think of the extremely large equipment for tidal
energy, extended panels for solar energy, etc. In particular, in these new sectors creativity is called for.
Process intensification is a good component of the
third paradigm. In this commentary, we hopefully were
able to show its meaning and appeal. We expect that a

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systematic effort to intensify the chemical process

industry will lead to spectacular results.
Acknowledgment
We are very grateful to Professors Edward L. Cussler,
Bart Drinkenburg, Colin Ramshaw, and Lanny Schmidt
for their valuable remarks and suggestions on the first
draft of this commentary.
Literature Cited
(1) Drinkenburg, B., personal communication, 2001.
(2) Calder, R. HEX Reactors Reduce Process Time by 98.6%.
BHR News 2000, Summer, 4.
(3) Phillips, C. H. Development of a novel compact chemical
reactor-heat exchanger. Proceedings of the 3rd International
Conference on Process Intensification for the Chemical Industry;
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71.
(4) Stankiewicz, A. Process Intensification in In-Line Monolithic
Reactor. Chem. Eng. Sci. 2001, 56, 359.
(5) Oxley, P.; Brechtelsbauer, C.; Ricard, F.; Lewis, N.; Ramshaw, C. Evaluation of Spinning Disk Reactor Technology for the
Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2000, 39,
2175.
(6) Zheng, C.; Guo, K.; Song, Y.; Zhou, X.; Al, D.; Xin, Z.;
Gardner, N. C. Industrial practice of HIGRAVITEC in water
deaeration. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on
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(7) Ramshaw, C. Higee DistillationsAn Example of Process
Intensification. Chem. Engr. 1983, 389, 13.
(8) Ramshaw, C.; Mallinson, R. H. Mass transfer apparatus and
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(9) Taber, R. E.; Hawkinson, D. R. Fluid Mixing Device. U.S.

Patent 2,894,732, 1959.
(10) Meili, A. Practical process intensification shown with the
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(11) Siirola, J. J. An Industrial Perspective on Process Synthesis. AIChE Symp. Ser. 1995, 91 (304), 222.
(12) Trent, D.; Tirtowidjojo, D. Commercial operation of a
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(13) Hendershot, D. C. Process Minimization: Making Plants
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(14) What is Chemical Engineering? Frontiers in Chemical
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(15) Astarita, G.; Ottino, J. M. Thirty-Five Years of BSL. Ind.
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(16) Wei, J. A century of changing paradigms in chemical
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(18) Thoughts and views exchanged at the UEF Symposium
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(19) Wei, J. Product Engineering: The Third Paradigm of
Chemical Engineering? Neal R. Amundson Lecture, Princeton
University, Jan 2001; lecture sheets can be seen at http://
www.princeton.edu/seasweb/deanwei.html.

Andrzej Stankiewicz*
DSM Research, P.O. Box 18,
6160 MD Geleen,
The Netherlands

Jacob A. Moulijn
Delft University of Technology,
Julianalaan 136,
2628BL Delft,
The Netherlands
IE011025P