Chemical Engineering for Non-Chemical Engineers

Book excerpt: Outlines the concepts of chemical engineering so that non-chemical engineers can interface with and understand basic chemical engineering concepts Overviews the difference between laboratory and industrial scale practice of chemistry, consequences of mistakes, and approaches needed to scale a lab reaction process to an operating scale Covers basics of chemical reaction eningeering, mass, energy, and fluid energy balances, how economics are scaled, and the nature of various types of flow sheets and how they are developed vs. time of a project Details the basics of fluid flow and transport, how fluid flow is characterized and explains the difference between positive displacement and centrifugal pumps along with their limitations and safety aspects of these differences Reviews the importance and approaches to controlling chemical processes and the safety aspects of controlling chemical processes, Reviews the important chemical engineering design aspects of unit operations including distillation, absorption and stripping, adsorption, evaporation and crystallization, drying and solids handling, polymer manufacture, and the basics of tank and agitation system design