Bridging the Gap Between Lab and Plant

COURSE OUTLINE

Day 1

• From recipe to process design – what information is needed?
  Principles of process development. How to assess minimum data requirements, especially in complex reaction systems. How to get more useful data from your experiments.

• A refresher in reaction kinetics.
  Understanding reaction kinetics can be very useful and doesn’t have to be difficult. Some worked examples should demonstrate this.

• Pre-reaction equilibria.
  Equilibria involving protonation or deprotonation of reactants are common and can a have an enormous effect on reaction rates.  This module explains the principles involved, and sets the scene for later modules.

• Phase equilibria and species distribution in reaction and workup.
  Many reactions and most work-up processes involve more than one phase. Simple partitioning and partitioning coupled to ionisation processes in one phase are presented. The relevance to phase-transfer catalysis is discussed.

Day 2

• Competing reactions
  Understanding competing reactions is key to understanding process yield (selectivity). This module considers the way in which selectivity can be influenced by pre-reaction equilibria. Simple methods for optimising reaction pH in aqueous systems are described.

• Solvent effects on reaction rates and selectivity
  This module seeks to introduce the fundamental science behind solvent selection, and to apply these principles to practical problems.

• Mixing effects on reactivity in pseudo-homogeneous systems
  An introduction to mixing in single phase systems. Agitators and baffles. Explains why the selectivity in some reactions in single-phase systems can be sensitive to the mixing procedures used, and shows how to mitigate these effects. Videos illustrate the principles.

Day 3

• Dispersion and mixing in two-phase systems
  Explains the principles behind mixing and separation in two-phase systems, and illustrates good laboratory and scale-up practice. Discusses phase continuity and phase separation. Shows how to ensure that your washes actually separate!

• Chemistry in multiphase reactions
  Shows that the overall reaction kinetics and selectivity in multi-phase systems can be greatly different from those observed in single phase systems, and explains the principles and laboratory practice required to understand such processes.

• Scale-up
  Shows how to minimise scale up problems by applying an understanding of basic physicochemical aspects of the process. Chemical reaction rate constants stay the same on scale up, but related physical processes are scale dependent. This simple principle can be used to think through possible scale-up difficulties.