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Preface

      The chemical process industry involves a broad spectrum of manufacturing sectors and facilities around the world. With increased global competition, escalating environmental concerns, dwindling energy, and material resources, it is imperative for industry to seek continuous process improvement. Process intensification and integration are among the most effective strategies leading to improved process designs and operations with enhancement in cost effectiveness, resource conservation, efficiency, safety, and sustainability. Process integration is a holistic framework for designing and operating industrial facilities with an overarching focus on the interconnected nature of the various pieces of equipment, mass, energy, and functionalities. On the other hand, process intensification involves efficiency improvement through effective strategies such as increasing throughput for the same physical size or decreasing the physical size for the same throughput, coupling units and phenomena, enhancing mass and energy utilization, and mitigating environmental impact. There is a natural synergism between process integration and intensification. For instance, mass and energy integration (two key pillars of process integration) are ideal approaches for enhancing mass and energy intensities.

      This book is intended to provide a compilation of the various recent developments in the fields of process intensification and process integration with focus on enhancing sustainability of the chemical processes and products. It includes state‐of‐the‐art contributions by world‐renowned leaders in process intensification and integration. It strikes a balance between fundamental techniques and industrial applications. Both academic researchers and industrial practitioners will be able to use this book as a guide to optimize their respective plants and processes.

      The 14 chapters in the book are classified into two broad areas: process intensification and process integration. As expected, several intensification chapters include integration and vice versa. These chapters may be read independently of each other, or with no particular sequence. Synopses of all chapters are given as follows.

Section 1 – Process Intensification

      The first section of the book consists of six chapters focusing on process intensification. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on process intensification for the shale gas industry. Chapter 1 entitled “Shale Gas as an Option for the Production of Chemicals and Challenges for Process Intensification” (by Ortiz‐Espinoza and Jiménez‐Gutiérrez) discusses alternatives to produce chemicals from shale gas, and opportunities for process intensification. In Chapter 2 entitled “Design and Techno‐Economic Analysis of Separation Units to Handle Feedstock Variability in Shale Gas Treatment” (by Bohac and coworkers), a systematic approach is proposed for the design of a processing plant to treat raw shale gas with variable composition. Chapters 3–5 focuses on various process intensification aspect of membrane separation processes. In Chapter 3 entitled “Sustainable Design and Model‐Based Optimization of Hybrid RO–PRO Desalination Process” (by Lu and coworkers), a dimensionless model‐based optimization approach was developed to evaluate the performance of a hybrid systems consisting of reverse osmosis and pressure retarded osmosis processes. In Chapter 4, entitled “Techno‐Economic and Environmental Assessment of Ultrathin Polysulfone Membranes for Oxygen‐Enriched Combustion” (by Lock and coworkers), multiscale simulation was used for techno‐economic feasibility study of ultrathin polysulfone membrane for oxygen‐enriched combustion; the multiscale simulation covers molecular scale, mesoscale, and eventually process optimization and design. Chapter 5, entitled “Process Intensification of Membrane‐Based Systems for Water, Energy, and Environment Applications” (by Md Nordin and coworkers), outlined three important applications of membrane technology in process intensification, i.e. membrane electrocoagulation flocculation for dye removal, membrane diffuser in photobioreactor, and forward osmosis/electrolysis. Chapter 6, entitled “Design of Internally Heat‐Integrated Distillation Column (HIDiC)” (by Harvindran and Foo), discussed the use of process simulation software for the design of an internal HIDiC.

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