All significant chemical processes are scaled up from lab to production volumes.
Processes carried out in lab conditions are by their nature done in small vessels. In such conditions, the transport of reactants is extremely fast which means that many reactions go to completion without the development of significant side reactions. In addition, one particular crystal morphology may be developed at small scale, whereas other polymorphs may be produced at larger scales.
Reactions dependent on good mixing are particularly prone to change their behaviour as volumes change.
For these reasons, process scale-up can lead to unpredictable results, significant reductions in yield and the production of by-products.
Process tomography is a volume based measurement technique so extremely well suited to investigating reaction conditions. In addition, tomography sensors can be designed for vessels from less than 1cm diameter to over 4 metres (for resistance tomography systems).
Data can be used on both a qualitative and quantitative basis with numerical parameters exported to Excell, MatLab or other analysis packages.
As well as the transition from small to large scale reaction, process engineers have used ITS technology as a tool to select optimal reactor conditions. For example, dish, conical or flat-bottomed reactor; mixing configuration, orientation and number of impellers.
Furthermore, process tomography sensors can usually be used under real process conditions, sensors can be made from chemically resistant materials (Hastelloy or tantalum electrodes; ceramic and advanced plastic sensor bodies) and deployed in hazardous conditions, such as ATEX zone zero environments.
