CHEMICAL PROCESS INDUSTRY

Dr. Ratna Dewi Kusumaningtyas, S.T., M.T.

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Universitas Negeri Semarang
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BASIC PRINCIPLE IN
CHEMICAL PROCESS
INDUSTRY

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Chemical Industry
Chemical process Industry:  
 In the chemical process industry, the raw materials undergo chemical conversion or physical change to
produce valuable products (finished products or intermediate products) on a large scale, and the industrial
process must be profitable.

 In the chemical process industry the products often differ chemically from the raw materials as a result of 
undergoing one or more chemical reactions during the manufacturing process. 

 The chemical process industries broadly include the traditional chemical industries, both organic and 
inorganic; the petroleum industry; the petrochemical industry, which produces the majority of 
plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber from petroleum and natural-gas as raw materials;
and a series of allied industries in which chemical processing plays a substantial part

 The chemical processing industry is essential to the modern global economy and plays a vital role in almost
every other industry in existence.

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Classes of Chemicals

Two main classes of Chemicals: organic and inorganic.

 Organic chemicals
Organic chemicals have a basic structure of carbon atoms, combined with hydrogen and
other elements. Oil and gas are today the source of 90% of world organic chemical production,
having largely replaced coal and vegetable and animal matter, the earlier raw materials.

 Inorganic chemicals
Inorganic chemicals are derived chiefly from mineral sources. Examples are sulfur, which is
mined as such or extracted from ores, and chlorine, which is made from common salt.

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Products Classification in Chemical Industry
The chemical products can be divided into 3 groups based on the principal steps in manufacture:

1. Base chemicals (organic and inorganic) are normally manufactured on a large scale and are normally
converted to other chemicals;
Basic Petrochemicals (derived from oil) – ex: methanol, ethylene, butadiene and toluene
Basic Polymers – ex: polyethylene, polycarbonate, polyamide (nylon) and polyaramide (Kevlar®)
Basic inorganics – ex: chlorine, ammonia caustic soda, sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid

2. Intermediates are derived from base chemicals and require further processing
ex: Acrylonitrile, terephatalic acid, furfural, etc.

3. Finished products. It can be consumer products or specialty product

Consumer Product : cosmetics, drugs, glues, cleaners, paints, pesticides, herbicides, soaps, foods.
Specialty Product : adhesives, agrichemicals, construction chemicals, flame-retardants or other
product which is designed and formulated to have such specific features/
properties

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Main Sectors of Chemical Industry

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Main Sectors of Chemical Industry
The main sectors of the chemical industry are as follows:
1.     Basic inorganics:
acids, alkalis and salts, mainly used elsewhere in industry and industrial gases, such as
oxygen, nitrogen and acetylene
2.     Basic organics:
feeds-tocks for plastics, resins, synthetic rubbers, and synthetic fibres; solvents and detergent
raw materials; dyestuffs and pigments
3.     Fertilizers and pesticides
(including herbicides, fungicides and insecticides)
4.     Plastics, resins, synthetic rubbers, cellulosic and synthetic fibres
5.     Pharmaceuticals (drugs and medicines)
6.     Paints, varnishes and lacquers
7.     Soaps, detergents, cleaning preparations, perfumes, cosmetics and other toiletries
8.     Miscellaneous chemicals
such as polishes, explosives, adhesives, inks, photographic film and chemicals

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General Flow Diagram Process

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Units in Chemical Process Industry
Unit involved in Chemical Process Industries .
1. Raw Material Preparation Unit.
Ex: size reduction in cement industry, temperature & pressure adjustment, desalting of crude oil,
removing the water content or other impurities in feed-stocks, sulfur removal, pre-mixing etc.

2. Synthesis Unit
Chemical or physical process to convert raw material into products
Ex: Reacting Hydrogen and nitrogen in the presence of catalyst to produce ammonia

3. Finishing Unit
Ex: purification using extraction, distillation, decantation, etc. Cristallization of the product to make it
granule, drying the liquid product to form powder, increasing product concentration using evaporation,
product blending, etc.

Give examples of activities in each units!

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Units in Chemical Process Industry
Important factors in chemical process industries:

1. Experts (chemical engineering expert or other engineer)

Engineer is the person who conduct the design, construction, operation, maintain the process in plant, trouble
shooting, etc.

2. Raw materials
Raw material should be available in sufficient quantities, affordable, sustainable. When the raw material finish, the
production process must stop, and it is a big loss for the industry.

3. Energy
Energy is essential to drive all the industrial processs. The processes applied to convert the raw material to the
desired products and the separation process use energy. The energy can be coal, oil, natural gas, or other energies.

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Units in Chemical Process Industry
Important factors in chemical process industries:

3. Equipment and instrumentation

 The design, lay-out, installation and operation of the equipment in chemical industry is important. Ex: pump,
compressor, heat exchanger, reactor, tank, distillation column, absorber etc. The productivity, efficiency and
safety of process plants depend on the proper equipment functionality
 Instrumentation is the basic process control in industry. In industrial control a wide number of variables
temperature, flow, level, pressure, and distance can be sensed simultaneously. All of these can be
interdependent variables in a single processing require a complex microprocessor system for total control.
 Measurement tools make the plant operation better and safer, and they enhance the quality and quantity of the
product. In the chemical process industry, Instrumentation is used to monitor and control the process plant in
the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, and other industries. Instrumentation comprises sensor elements,
signal transmitters, controllers, indicators and alarms, actuated valves, logic circuits and operator interfaces.

Current issue: safety. https://inspectioneering.com/tag/osha+1910

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Reactor Operation Mode: Batch vs Continuous

 Continuous process
Continuous process is widely applied in petro-chemical and bulk chemical industry for its
high production rate, automated operation and saving in cost (Plumb, 2005).

 Batch process
In contrast, some industries such as pharmaceutical industry are still primarily relies on
traditional batch process. This aspect stems from intrinsic limitations in active
pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) production. Besides, complexity of medical substances
means multistep synthesis. An average of 8.1 steps is needed for one API synthesis (Laird,
2006). Another limitation is production volume. Demand for drugs are not comparable with
most of the bulk chemicals. These limitations make batch process dominate pharmaceutical
industry for a long time.

Give example other industries use batch process!

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Reactor Operation Mode: Batch vs Continuous
Batch vs Continuous

Variables:

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Examples of Continuous Reactor:
Methanol Production via Natural Gas Reforming

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Examples of Batch Reactor

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Examples of Batch Reactor

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Examples of Batch Reactor

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Reactor Types

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1. CSTR – MIXED FLOW REACTOR

Mixed flow reactor (CSTR) ideal steady-state flow reactor is called the mixed reactor, the back-mix
reactor, the ideal stirred tank reactor.
It is a reactor in which the contents are well stirred and uniform throughout. Thus, the exit stream
from this reactor has the same composition as the fluid within the reactor
 2. Plug Flow Reactor = Reaktor Alir Pipa

Fluid going through a plug flow reactor is modeled as flowing through the reactor as a series
of infinitely thin coherent “plugs”, each having a uniform composition.
The plugs travel in the axial direction of the reactor, with each plug having a different
composition from the ones before and after it.
 Fluidized bed reactors are heterogeneous catalytic
reactors in which the mass of catalyst is fluidized.

3. Fluidized Bed
This allows for extensive mixing in all directions.

Fluidized bed reactors are widely used in material

processing industries for processes that require very
good heat and mass transfer between particles and a
gas.

Fluidized-bed reactors have a number of advantages:

• Better heat removal results in isothermal
operation with better product control.
• Smaller catalyst particles result in higher
effectiveness factor.
• Small unit size.
• Because of circulation, fresh catalyst can be
added and deactivated catalyst removed.

Examples of application:
1. To produce gasoline and other fuels
2. Many industrially produced polymers are made
using FBR technology, such as rubber, vinyl chloride,
polyethylene, styrenes, and polypropylene
 A bubble column reactor is an apparatus used to
generate and control gas-liquid chemical reactions. It
4. Bubble Column Reactor
consists of a vertically-arranged cylindrical column
filled with liquid, at the bottom of which gas is inserted

Gas is sparged from the bottom of the reactor in the

form of a bubble. Radially nonuniform distribution of
gas bubbles (gas volume fraction) leads to buoyancy
driven internal circulation within the bubble column.

Bubble sizes depend on physical-chemical properties,

sparger design and superficial gas velocity. The mean
and turbulent flow generated by gas bubbles is used to
keep catalyst particles in a suspended condition.

These reactors provide good mixing and heat transfer

characteristics.

Application: are extensively used in carrying out gas-

liquid and gas-liquid-solid reactions in a variety of
important industrial reactions, including
hydrogenation, oxidation, hydroformilation ,
chlorination, and so on.
4. FIXED BED REACTORS
4. FIXED BED REACTORS
Catalytic fixed-bed reactors are the important type of reactor for the synthesis of largescale
basic chemicals and intermediates.
In a fixed-bed reactor the catalyst pellets are held in place and do not move with respect to a
fixed reference frame.
In these reactors, the reaction takes place in the form of a heterogeneously catalyzed gas
reaction on the surface of catalysts that are arranged as a socalled fixed bed in the reactor.

Application:
Fixed-bed reactors are a widely used reactor type in the chemical and process industry.
Among other applications, they play a key role for heterogeneous catalysis, e.g. steam and dry
reforming of methane, the oxidative coupling of methane to ethylene, or the Sabatier process.
5. Shell And Tube Fixed Bed Reactor

Among the most common arrangement of

fixed bed reactor is the multitubular fixed-
bed reactor, in which the catalyst is
arranged in the tubes, and the heat carrier
circulates externally around the tubes .
hank ou!

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