Page 9 - Process Equipment and Plant Design Principles and Practices by Subhabrata Ray Gargi Das

CHAPTER

1
General aspects of process design

1.1 Process
An industrial process converts feed material to useful product(s) of desired quality in commercial
scale. The steps involved in such a process need to be technically viable, safe, and economical. Such
steps involve heat, mass, momentum transfer, and chemical reaction, independently or in combination.
A process is always designed to perform a specific function. Such a task can be heating of a material
from an initial to a final temperature, mixing of several streams to achieve homogeneity, separation of a
multicomponent material stream or chemical conversion of a reactor feed to products and their sub-
sequent separation.

Simple processes are usually centered around one single or
major equipment. Auxiliary equipment may be required to
Simple and complex processes
complete the functionality. Examples of simple processes can be:

Process Equipment Auxiliary equipment
Heating of a stream Heat Pump, pipe fittings
exchanger
Sieving for separation of solids Sieve
Receiving of naphtha from berthed tankers to shore tanks Pump and Storage tanks at berth, if required
and its transportation to a petrochemical plant a few pipeline
kilometers away
Capture of hydrocarbon solvent vapor from a process by Packed bed Blowers, piping, and pipe fittings
adsorption in an activated carbon bed
Separation of a mixture of benzene and toluene by Distillation Heat exchangers (reboiler,
distillation column condenser), pump, and pipe fittings
Drying of compressed air for supply to instruments Drier Compressor, filter, pump, and pipe
fittings, compressed air storage

Complex processes constitute of several simpler processes. The process plant converting raw
material to product streams may involve reaction, separation by distillation, extraction, absorption,

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