Role and Importance of Chemical Engineering in the Specialty Chemicals Industry – a Point of View from Process Development

CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING 114 CHIMIA 2002, 56, No. 4

Chimia 56 (2002) 114–118 © Schweizerische Chemische Gesellschaft ISSN 0009–4293

Role and Importance of Chemical Engineering in the Specialty Chemicals Industry – A Point of View from Process Development

Lukas Doulakas, Pascal Larpin, Horst Maire*, Laurent Menoud**

Abstract: Chemical engineers offer many skills perfectly in line with the requirements of the specialty chemicals industry, especially within process development. One of the main tasks of this department is to recruit and train young talent. A chemical engineer helps in defining new processes, improving established products and solving EHS (environment, health and safety) issues. Thus, the chemical engineer takes an active role in the main stages of a product life cycle and fosters through his communication skills cooperation with other colleagues working in different fields, such as production & engineering, product management, technical services. In order to fulfill the industry requirements, the Higher Institutes of Technology are encouraged to continuously offer the best education in chemical engineering. Keywords: Chemical engineering · Process development · Specialty chemicals · Young talent

1. Introduction The basic questions, which finally safety (EHS) aspects and are well pre- lead to this publication, are: pared to take over other responsibilities Even though the authors are working in • Do we need chemical engineers in the in the company. process development groups within Ciba specialty chemicals industry? The main objectives of a PD group are Specialty Chemicals Inc. the present arti- • Is a process development group the the development of inherently safe, relia- cle reflects our personal point of view right entry point for young chemical ble, reproducible, robust processes at low and is based on our specific experiences. engineers? cost for new or existing products respect- The opportunity to explain, particularly • Do chemical engineers play an impor- ing quality constraints and legal EHS to young students, current industrial tant role in industrial process devel- requirements. In order to fulfill this mis- process development (PD) in a realistic opment? sion, PD groups consist often of an opti- way has been our main motivation. When considering all aspects, posi- mum balance between chemists and tive and negative, which currently influ- chemical engineers, where PD chemists ence and lead process development activ- or PD chemical engineers work in multi- ities in the specialty chemicals industry, skilled teams, where the chemical engi- or what PD offers young talent, the an- neer is the connecting link between tech- *Correspondence: Dr. H. Maire swer to all the above questions is clearly nical (such as production & engineering, Ciba Specialty Chemicals Inc. yes! quality control) and non-technical services Coating Effects Segment One important task of PD is the re- (such as product management, marketing, Process Development Monthey; CE 6.23 Building WM–369B cruitment and training of young ta- product safety & registration, research). Case postale lent and future managers. Assuming an To explain the role and importance of the CH–1870 Monthey Tel.: + 41 24 474 4964 ideal group size, where continuity and process development, we chose the main Fax: + 41 24 474 4979 exchanges could be guaranteed, without stages of a product life cycle as a thread. E-Mail: [email protected] affecting the necessary skills, a young www.cibasc.com graduate (male/female) will stay about **Correspondence: Dr. L. Menoud Ciba Specialty Chemicals Inc. 3–5 years in PD, where he/she receives 2. Process Development and Home and Personal Care Segment and experiences his/her basic training in Product Life Cycle Process Development Monthey; HP 4.37 the company. After this period, which Building WM–374 Case postale serves as preparation for their future ca- The different aspects of process de- CH–1870 Monthey reer, they are well acquainted with prod- velopment work could be discussed and Tel.: + 41 24 474 4052 ucts (chemistry, processes), production illustrated in an exemplary way, when we Fax: + 41 24 474 4079 E-Mail: [email protected] (plant, installation, equipment), working look at the ideal product life cycle as www.cibasc.com methodology, environment – health – shown in Fig. 1. It is obvions that not eve- CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING 115 CHIMIA 2002, 56, No. 4 ry product will follow this profile, but the development work must be made as if for an ideal product as described in the quality management (QM) procedure. During the different phases in a product life, the role and the required knowledge will change with the problems encountered. In a general way, the product life can be subdivided in two main periods, which are separated by the launch of the product, or, more precisely, when the product passes to the responsibility of production. The subdivision in ‘New Products’ and ‘Range Product’ reflects precisely this fundamental difference. During the first period the product is fully integrated in the ‘innovation process’, where teams (often headed by marketing or R&D) consider all questions and problems to be solved up to the launch. On the other Fig. 1. Sales and cash flow during the product life cycle hand in the second period, when the product becomes a range product, production takes over the responsibility. Let us have a look now at what happens typically during the above-mentioned phases. 2.2. Growth simply the product of margin multiplied 2.1. Development & Introduction Once on the market, the product by volume (sold quantities), the process When considering the features in this enters into competition with existing development in collaboration with pro- phase, it is obvions that quantities are products. If our perception of the advan- duction & engineering can only affect the rather small: before the first introduction, tages (and disadvantages) of our product, benefit by improving the margin, thus only lab or pilot samples are available. the positioning and the marketing strate- lowering the production costs. And you When the process development is in- gy were correctly made, the sales will can assume that the sales price will de- volved, research work is almost complet- grow more or less rapidly. Then it be- crease all the time. If we have the ideal ed and the chemistry is more or less de- comes increasingly important that the case, that our product is still protected by fined. Following the decision based on margin (simply said the difference be- international patents, the most important a business justification to bring such a tween sales price and total production task of the process development group is product to the market, the registration of costs) in Fig. 2 is maximum and enough to guarantee the lowest production costs the molecule will start and, for products capacity is available; in addition increas- possible in order to remain competitive foreseen to be used in ‘food contact’, ap- ing EHS problems must have been and to raise the hurdle for our competi- plication approvals are needed (e.g. solved. Supposing the company benefit is tors after the patent protection has expired. FDA, GMP, FPL). Project teams will be set up, composed of colleagues from research, product management, marketing, registration, production & engineering, quality control and process development. In order to bring the product to the market as quickly as possible (catchword: ‘faster time to market’) we are asked to accept compromises: first production campaigns will take place in existing facilities, which are often not completely suitable for our chemistry; our process is not fully optimized, EHS problems are only solved in a semi-optimal way (such as incineration of mother liquors instead of solvent recovery), production costs are still too high. There remains a large potential for process optimization.

Fig. 2. Development of volume, sales price and ‘total production costs (TPC)’ CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING 116 CHIMIA 2002, 56, No. 4

2.3. Maturity 3. The Role of Process document, a complete risk analysis must If a product reaches this phase of its Development within the Different be carried out, which is time-consuming life, we are often confronted with a very Phases in a Product Life and is always a special task performed curious situation. The whole process (in- in groups consisting of representatives cluding solvent recovery units, waste gas 3.1. New Products from production and process develop- treatment) has been optimized over a At this early stage in product life, the ment and other specialists such as safety, number of years. Specific skills and development work is best comparable to mechanical and electrical engineers. Be- knowledge have been built up and docu- the research work at the university. To cause timetables are always ambitious, mented. The quality is under control and follow a product from its birth (first trials this time must be taken into consideration the production costs are (sufficiently) in lab, then pilot), over the project work on the schedule. From the chemical engi- low. It is normal that the process devel- (e.g. definition of product properties, neer, a clear picture and knowledge of the opment decreases or stops its activities process optimization, identification of new process is needed, as every last related to this product. When entering relevant parameters, reaction kinetics, minute process or technology change this phase, the process development preparation of launch), until the first could affect the risk analysis! The chemi- group ‘loses’ more and more specific batch is in production creates in most cal engineer must apply the best method- product know-how. The main reasons are cases a very exciting and satisfying job. ology as economical and time constraints that development is now working on oth- The chemical engineer must build up tend to skip the pilot phase, thus intro- er products; PD must also face a high rate specific knowledge about the product and ducing a lab process directly into full- of personal fluctuation (especially with the process, and a lot of open questions scale production. the chemists and chemical engineers) and need to be answered. Besides, an understanding of non- unfortunately a reduced personal strength Once a market justification is estab- chemical processes is not only desirable in a difficult economic situation. lished for the product, marketing will put but also indispensable. Chemical engi- In addition, the production staff might on pressure in order to have this product neers may have slight advantages in such have realized a number of minor process manufactured under ‘real’ conditions on cases because of their wide-ranging edu- changes to solve specific (everyday) a production scale. One of the crucial cation compared to pure chemists, even if problems, which could lead, at least, to a problems during this first introduction is we clearly need both of them in the proc- different or modified process. All togeth- to match the defined quality, which must ess development. er we could end up with process that is be representative of the future require- Although the product is in a very early out of control, where the production is no ments. Nevertheless, quality deviations phase, some of the future work to be done longer able to deliver the product on time are quite normal at this early stage and we will be already defined and identified at within the required quality and quantity. will follow the ‘learning curve’ as quick- this stage. The process choice with the To counteract such a non-desired evolu- ly as complete has been our former devel- definition of raw materials, solvents and tion, process development groups must opment work. This means that we need specific technologies defines at this stage be close to production (especially in key an integral understanding of parameters potential future problems such as supply production sites), with a group size which which may influence the product quality problems with ‘exotic’ raw materials, enables us to do our work in a suitable especially after a scale-up. It is worth waste gas treatment, solvent recovery of way and finally an active personal re- mentioning at this point that during a complex mixtures, control of special cruitment is necessary to anticipate future scale-up, not all physical effects like mix- technologies and disposal of solid waste. personal changes. ing (micro, macro, time), heat transfer, Such problems, and this is only a small shear stresses can be kept constant at the selection, become more and more impor- 2.4. Downturn same time. We need to know what the tant when larger quantities must be pro- Now the last phase is entered, where most important effects are. And quite fre- duced. This explains clearly the impor- further cost reduction becomes nearly quently we have to find the right compro- tance of the role of chemical engineering impossible, if PD has correctly done its mise between two or more parameters. and of the process development work at homework up until now. The focus of de- Finally in such cases, chemical engineers this stage. velopment work becomes more and more have to finalize the optimization proce- Another crucial point is the identifica- concentrated on the last remaining poten- dure, such as stirrer speed, on the production and anticipation of mid- or long-term tials for cost reduction. The company tion scale. requirements. Decisions have to be made might need to accept higher risks in terms Due to small initial volumes, it is evi- frequently on the marketing forecast, of quality; e.g. less quality control could dent that the required production capacity which is based on a multitude of assump- be acceptable, because the process is low, and therefore problems relevant to tions. This might lead to an investment in should be under control. However, higher EHS are smaller, but never zero. The a period where the (cumulated) profit is risks in terms of safety will never be project team will or may accept non-opti- still negative. accepted! mal solutions in order to accelerate the In order to avoid or to prevent the un- market launch. But to avoid misunder- 3.2. Range Products desired downturn of sales, R&D and standings: legal EHS constraints must al- 3.2.1. Improved Processes product management try to add specific ways be observed and for safety aspects, For a product in the mature part of its features to the product, which could be of the Company will never accept a com- life cycle, the responsibility is then hand- interest for our customers, e.g. special promise! To strive for the highest safety ed over to production staff. However our sales forms trying to re-start a new cycle standards is part of our philosophy. colleagues still need team support from of life. For new products, the role of chemi- PD in order to optimize the process and cal engineer is to develop a reproducible decrease production costs. In the growth and cost competitive process and edit the phase of the product life cycle, the chem- manufacturing procedure. As part of this ical engineer helps in decreasing variable CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING 117 CHIMIA 2002, 56, No. 4 costs (raw materials) by reducing the timum process set-up, a choice must be consumers. Then comparing the theoreti- excess reactant and increasing the yield, made between either debottlenecking cal demand with the effective require- using among other methods incremental existing equipment (more or less status ment, we put in evidence the biggest en- step improvements (EVOP), factorial quo for the process) or purchasing new ergy consumers (losses higher than 15%) plan, and basic reaction engineering tech- equipment allowing the ideal process to such as solvent recovery units and con- niques. Often, due to the volume effects, be reached. One of the challenges the tinuous working unit operation. small incremental improvements could chemical engineer and the whole team help save several hundred thousand CHF. have to face is parallel work on running Such productivity improvements are al- production. 4. Chemical Engineer: ways possible and not in contradiction Role and Perspective with a high-quality development during 3.2.3. Environment, Health, launch phase. The latitude for optimiza- and Safety Our description of the role of the tion and debottlenecking is mainly within Together with capacity projects, the chemical engineer in specialty chemicals the domain of scientific and technical in- importance of EHS problems is propor- should help young talent to better under- novation, such as new catalyst discovery, tional to production quantity; that means, stand our needs. Nevertheless, whenever better solvent and catalyst regeneration, for mature products with big production discussions with students are undertaken, and new technology such as membranes. volumes, specific and high-tech solutions one question is regularly asked: ‘What is New computer technologies such as are usually needed to improve the eco- the role and the future of a chemical engi- process simulation and advanced mode- efficiency. In order to respect and even neer in industry?’ Many reasons may ling also allow further improvements on anticipate regulations, EHS equipment is be hidden behind this question such as product cost. very often associated with investment lack of industrial knowledge, uncertain- With regard to fixed costs, the role of (see the step in EHS level in Fig. 2), ty, fear, accidents in industrial plants, PD is to apply chemical engineering to where a definitive and efficient EHS mergers and re-organization. Whatever specific fields such as decreasing energy solution must be available. As process the reasons are, a lack of communication consumption, solving EHS issues and re- owner, the chemical engineer partici- persists between the chemical industry ducing waste production. A special focus pates in designing the unit, followed by and universities: let us take the opportu- is given to solvent recovery units, as they start-up and handover to production. The nity to give the point of view of chemical deal with both energy and waste. task of continuously reducing the envi- engineers who asked the same questions An interesting fact to point out is that ronmental impact of our products and a few years ago. incremental improvements made directly manufacturing procedures is certainly a by the production over several years key element and one that definitely re- 4.1. General Outlook often lead to reduced process control quires better support during the education All engineers employ mathematics, (correlating with quality problems), of young chemical engineers. physics, and engineering skills to over- because the process could be now be dif- come technical problems in a safe and ferent (introduction of ‘process change 3.2.4. Energy and Raw Materials economical fashion. Yet, it is the chemi- procedure’). In this case the chemical en- In direct connection with EHS as- cal engineer alone that draws upon the gineer is asked to re-invent the wheel pects, energy consumption and waste are vast and powerful science of chemistry to (that means going back to the former of high interest to decrease cost. Espe- solve problems. He uses computer tech- process). Communication skills are nec- cially within Ciba Specialty Chemicals, a nology to optimize all phases of the prod- essary to find out the history behind the strong focus is presently put to both top- uct life cycle and therefore needs to un- problem. ics, as the company has established ambi- derstand how to apply computer skills. tious goals to decrease the energy and He designs equipment and develops 3.2.2. Capacity raw material consumption – assuming processes for large-scale chemical manu- Following process optimization aimed that less raw materials translates to less facturing, plans and tests methods for at increasing productivity, the sales could waste. In collaboration with PD, produc- manufacturing the products and treating (should) reach such a volume that no tion & engineering have initiated actions the by-products, and supervises produc- more idle capacity is available in produc- to encourage day-to-day actions (better tion. The studies at technology universi- tion; so further growth will only be possi- utilities management) and in parallel ties help him to acquire all the knowledge ble after a substantial investment. identifying the big consumers and ex- necessary for these tasks. The wide range With this positive outlook of growing press the energy efficiency unit per unit. of courses on offer covering mass, mo- sales, PD plays an important role as proc- For a mono-product plant, the cost of mentum and energy balance, thermody- ess owner. On the one hand, by offering steam is very often the highest cost block, namics and chemical kinetics are well the sum of expertise and know-how followed by electricity and cooling wa- adapted to requirements of industry. gained during the launch and growth ter. Overall and specific energy balances However, a chemical engineer in the phase, including statistical process analy- are set up to identify potential fields for industry is mainly occupied with finding sis and feedback from past mistakes. On improvement. For example, applying appropriate solutions even under difficult the other hand, after the analysis of the techniques such as pinch technology conditions (cost and time restrictions, situation and if latitude is given, time for helped to decrease the energy consump- different languages, safety policy etc.). innovation is open. As a member of a tion. As steam is the major block cost, in This aspect and the responsibility to take project team, the chemical engineer will a second example, we developed a spe- decisions are the main differences be- cover fields such as process design, reac- cific tool to measure the steam consump- tween industry and university. tion technology, and new process tech- tion on-line and indirectly through con- nologies. Finally, based on previous densate flow. Using this tool, we were experience and innovation in case of op- able to identify more than 90% of steam CHEMICAL REACTION ENGINEERING 118 CHIMIA 2002, 56, No. 4

4.2. The Chemical Engineer as neer spends a lot of time providing eco- Universal Engineer nomical answers to increase the safety Many companies are under great of installations, clean-up yesterday’s pressure. The competition never sleeps, waste and prevent tomorrow’s pollution. and it is no secret that high-quality prod- The working methods in the field of EHS ucts at aggressive prices originating follow well-defined rules and require rig- mainly from Asia permanently attack the orous methodology. The first part of this worldwide position of Swiss (or Euro- work consists of collecting safety data. pean) companies. Constant high-quality The second part consists of detecting and products, innovation and cost reduction elaborating dangerous situations like risk are some of the best answers to this prob- of explosion, runaway scenarios etc. Fi- lem. The chemical engineer helps in all nally, finding and introducing appropri- three domains and faces therefore many ate solutions to minimize the risk (risk = of the same challenges that other profes- probability × severity) is the last step be- sionals face. Despite a title that suggests fore a process can be run. a profession of narrow specialists, in fact chemical engineers must be extremely open-minded and have to be able to han- 5. Future Prospects for a Chemical dle a wide range of technical problems. Engineer One of his/her prime skills and responsibilities, however, is that of the cost reduc- Following the main stages of the tion. product life cycle, the tasks of a chemical Under cost reduction, we do not only engineer are numerous, as numerous as refer to the classical field of optimization the number of partners within an interna- of older products by improving their tional company. Thanks to his education conversion, saving energy or decreasing in an institute of technology such as waste. But also cost reduction already ETH/EPF, there exists little doubt starts when launching a new product. concerning the future prospects of the Existing capacities have to be utilized in- chemical engineer. The classical oppor- stead of building new facilities or buying tunities in process development are not brand-new equipment. It is the art of the the only domain for interesting jobs, but chemical engineer to propose the best commonly used as a starting point in the and most economic option. specialty chemicals industry. After a few Another prime skill lies in the field of years, strategic positions like production, production. Knowledge of the different product management, technical market- unit operations (e.g. distillation, heat ex- ing, and investment project management change, filtration) is important for the are open for the acquisition of further ex- global understanding of the production. perience. Many chemical engineers have Finally, a chemical engineer is predesti- found their way into upper management. nated for all works where balances (e.g. Outside the chemical industry, the chem- mass, energy or cost balance) have to be ical engineer’s expertise is also applied in calculated. the areas of law, education, publishing, Nevertheless, the wide range of the finance, and medicine, as well as in many problems that a chemical engineer has to other fields requiring technical experi- solve may rapidly require more than his ence. knowledge and experience. Therefore, Unfortunately, chemical engineering challenging the problems with other col- graduates may also face competition for leagues is part of his daily work. His skill jobs; however, the possibility of practical in understanding different fields without training exists and contacts with people always being a specialist, often provides from industry surely help to find jobs the opportunity to run the organisational even under difficult transient situations. part of a project. Rest assured, the specialty chemicals industry will always offer interesting op- 4.3. Environment, Health, portunities for young talent! and Safety A very important point is the safety Received: February 19, 2002 culture and the protection of the workers and of the environment. Many industrial plants are located close to civil popula- tions. The future of the chemical industry can only be guaranteed by running safe processes with low emission impact on the environment coupled with appropriate hygiene standards. A chemical engi-