INTRODUCTION TO BIOPROCESS ECONOMICS AND PLANT DESIGN

Process Alternatives
Various process alternatives emerge in the course of the conference and they must be evaluated during the actual process design. The decision is influenced by
pressures of the product sales commitment project schedule equipment and material deliveries local conditions whether experimental data are available to permit an investigation of deviations from the established design basis.

Economic Requirements:
The process design engineer must utilize his experience from past similar design problems and operating situations in carrying out various evaluations of alternatives to be assured that the originally projected process economics are satisfied. For any plant design, control of capital expenditure is of utmost importance and the expenditure of capital over the absolute minimum to provide conservatism must be continuously monitored.

The degree and extent of conservatism added to the process design is established after a careful evaluation of the accuracy and thoroughness of the
process development work experimental data validity of physical properties technical data reliability of the particular equipment design procedure.

Plant Size
The plant size is established by the combined efforts of general management, the process evaluation planning group and the sales marketing personnel. The process engineer can help the economists reach the proper balance as increase in production will decrease production cost and at the same time increase in production leads to drop in prices.

Product Specification
The determination and establishment of the product specification is of utmost importance in the ultimate marketing of the biochemical product and the profitability of the venture. Criteria for determining product specification for an established product is different from that of new chemicals.

Project Schedule
During the conference an overall schedule for the project is outlined including the portion allotted for process design. The schedule is controlled by the desired start up date and the availability of equipment, materials and labor.

A well thought out and conceived process design is and absolute necessity.

Future Expansion
It is most desirable to design physical facilities so that the plant can be easily expanded at a later stage.

Future Process Obsolescence

In designing and building a plant, consideration must be given for the economic life of the project. A balance must often be made between utilizing existing processing techniques as opposed to the risk of novel technology and unproven schemes, both of which promise economic savings. The technique to overcome this difficulty is to evaluate carefully the degree of risks with the savings and in some cases arrange the design to add a nominal increase in investment to permit incorporating a more conventional design at a later stage.

 Apart from the above, the following considerations are to be taken in to account during the process design stage.
operating and plant site considerations operating personnel and supervision characteristics maintenance personnel and facilities availability of plant storage and material handling facilities