Chemical Process Technology and Chemical Mixing

To manufacture different kinds of materials that involve chemicals that interact between them, there is a lot of very wide range of equipment that are used in these kinds of industries. But if we analyze more deeply about what is the intention of this kind of equipment, the main and basic intention is to generate interaction between the materials to take in advance their chemical affinity under the conditions that will generate intermediate to final products this is the main goal and intention for companies; manufacturing materials to sell them and to generate income to the company to improve the level of quality life in the world. These interactions were generated in the process technology, equipment, and chemical process technology, and are very specific in some kind of tool that we are using to get the conditions for the materials to react or to involve a second chemical and to generate our products.

Different kinds of processes require different types of interaction between these materials, and it is the mixing purpose. The main purpose of chemical mixing is to generate adequate or appropriate interaction between the materials in order to take in advance the chemical affinity between them. So, if for instance, we talk about reactions, the reaction’s characterization is some interaction between molecules that will change their properties to other products. It will be different chemicals, the product of the two reactants. And to generate this exact reactant and no other kind of reactant that is not our intention, we need to provide some conditions. In the chemical point of view will be temperature, pH, and concentration, but from the physics point of view, will be the interaction between the molecules, the frequency of this interaction, and the complete interaction between all the materials in the tank and the time required to generate the product that we’re looking for. This is the chemical mixing. So, if we summarize in the industry, the chemical mixing intention is to provide the physics conditions to the materials in order to take in advance the chemical affinity to manufacture our materials.

The second reason for chemical process technology, or the second fundamental point for chemical process technology, is that we’re trying to run the process and disturb the stability or equilibrium between the materials. In all of the activities we’re discussing (distillation, crystallization, and reaction), our main intention is to take some action, to invest some energy to disturb the equilibrium. Because if we are in equilibrium, the meaning of this will not progress with our product. We are in equilibrium, this is a static situation, but our process is defined by some progress in the process to generate my final material. So, the second point is to disturb the equilibrium. The only way to disturb the equilibrium is to change the conditions in the fact that when we are changing, for instance, temperature, and concentration, what we are generating inside is the fact that when we have different temperatures and concentrations, the material will move to the other place where the concentration is low or the energy will be transferred to the media or extracted from the media because the temperatures are different and we are trying to stabilize the temperatures, and this change is generating changing in the equilibrium and giving the capability to progress.

All of this group is good, but these phenomena transfer that we take in advance is taking time, and this time we can define it with the hydrodynamics that we are generating. So, all of the bases of mass transfer and heat transfer are a function of the flow we are generating in our tank. And when talking about flow in our tank, when we talk about sterile vessels, we’re talking about mixing. So, if I were able to identify which mixing parameters are important to control; the mass transfer, the heat transfer, and all the processes that will influence the heat mass transfer, we would be able to control and provide the materials into the tank, the physics conditions to interact in the way that we’re interested, to have to progress and to go to our final product.

So, these are the main two points that we can describe; the process technology and the chemical mixing. Of course, it’s possible now to describe every one of the unit operations that we’re used to managing; chemical reactions, fermentations, phase separation, emulsification, crystallization, distillation, wet milling, and many others. Every one of them, according to the chemical we have inside, and according to what we are looking for, will require in a scenario of physics, conditions that we are providing with the flow that we’re generating inside. These in combination with the chemical affinity, thermodynamics, and all, will give us the capability to move the equilibrium to the place that we want in order to manufacture our materials.