Fundamental that underpins all chemical engineering processes

Reaction engineering and chemical kinetics are two fundamental themes that underpin all chemical engineering processes. Chemical reactors are the most vital elements of the chemical industry, contributing significantly to the total plant cost, efficiency of production, pollution control, number of separation steps needed downstream, and therefore to its ultimate profitability. Although the reactor is the heart of most process plants, it usually is treated as a "black box" or a proprietary item and is not covered by commercial simulators.

Each technology developer or licensor uses its own procedure to develop its reactor model. Such a procedure often is lengthy and expensive, due to ill-defined steps, many trial-and-error mistakes, and excessive pilot-plant campaigns. Finally, even if the reactor is "successfully" scaled up to commercial size, the credibility of the design and the optimum operating conditions of the reactor often are questionable. "On the other hand, a plant owner may not have the know-how or confidence to modify, revamp, or modernize the reactor or its operation. The owner needs to build an in-house model for any such effort"1. The cover article "Build Robust Reactor Models" in the October 2000 issue of Chemical Engineering Progress presented a "well developed and tested procedure for building a robust reactor model/model package, [with] tips and traps [plus] proven ways to substantially cut the cost and time for the effort"1.

One of the authors of that article (Subhash Dutta) has been a designer, program manager, hands-on experimenter, technology developer/ adviser, professor, process engineer, modeler, programmer/coder and consultant, and has more than 40 years of industrial experience, including with Simulation Sciences, SABIC, Englehard, Fluor Daniel, ConocoPhillips and Lummus Crest - all in reaction engineering and reactor design. He has spent his career on this work, plus other activities successfully "serving clients worldwide with the fastest, assured and most comprehensive reactor with software services and solutions in industry, to minimize risk and cost of process development; and to provide help in starting and making confident decisions on new reactor/technology or change/revamp of existing ones"2. Dutta’s work has continued and advanced this work, including the General Reactor Model (GRMTM) referenced in this article.

In addition to his further assistance to clients, he has formed a company, DIFREX LLC, which uses the GRM and also the wide range of know-how and expertise of an expanded team. Today DIFREX LLC is a team of process engineers based in Cape Canaveral, Florida, that provides reactor services and solutions to clients worldwide in areas such as design and consulting on existing/new reactor systems, critical review/quick-check of third-party designs, experimental development and validation of proposed and recommended designs, debottlenecking/retrofit/revamp, and emergency response2.

The website www.difrex.com provides more description of the GRM and the other services that DIFREX provides, including examples of past applications and references1-33 and how they have contributed to faster development, evaluation, decision-making, etc., reducing costs and time, and have also led to increased standardization and enhanced certainty of the results, with additional economic benefits. These advances have been applied to a wide variety of reactor systems, with or without catalyst, and will be extended to more in the future

We design, develop and service commercial reactors and auxiliary systems. We help in all steps from concept/idea to commercialization of a new reactor or change/revamp of an existing one.