Chemical Engineering April 2012 - 66

Engineering Practice
must be integrated with the correct
unit operations and proper stoichiometry
control to produce a quality
product. Such processes will be more
robust, economical and will require
minimal in-process testing of intermediates.
Products will have consistent
and repeatable quality, and therefore,
lower cost. Incomplete understanding
and poor manipulation of the physical
properties of the chemicals in a process
and their interactions can lead
to quality issues. It would be like
composing a musical piece where the
notes are poorly placed and required
fine tuning each time the composition
is performed.
Working with creative people who
are " masters in manipulation " of
chemical properties helps a great deal.
Additional examples and methods to
those discussed in this article can be
found in [1].
Establishing processes that yield the
desired quality and that require minimal
(or no) testing of process intermediates
should be the goal of chemists and
engineers involved with both chemicals
and pharmaceuticals. Most existing
chemical processes can be simplified
and improved as part of a " continuous
improvement " exercise by fine tuning,
using design of experiments and other
similar tools. However, changes to processes
and products requiring regulatory
approval (such as pharmaceuticals)
pose a cost and time challenge in
this area, since process adjustments
to a product that has been approved
would require re-approval, and that
can be an expensive undertaking.
A key challenge for chemists and
process engineers in both the chemical
and pharmaceutical arenas is to
gain a comprehensive understanding
of the nuances of the physical properties
of the chemicals they work
with, and to think carefully - from
the earliest stages of process design
and development - about how to leverage
those properties to create a
simple process.
■
Edited by Scott Jenkins
References
1. Malhotra, G. " Chemical Process Simplification:
Improving Productivity and Sustainability, "
John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J., 2011.
Author
Girish Malhotra is president
and founder of EPCOT International
(29150 Bryce Road,
Pepper Pike, OH 44124; Email:
girish@epcotint.com; Phone:
216-292-0626). He has more
than 43 years of industrial
experience in pharmaceuticals,
specialty, custom and fine
chemicals, coatings, resins and
polymers, additives in manufacturing,
process and technology
development and business development.
Malhotra enhances profitability by simplifying
technology and manufacturing practices using
engineering and science principles. Malhotra focuses
on process technology development; process
simplification and quality improvement; lowering
manufacturing costs; process improvements; and
waste reduction. He has an M.S.Ch.E. from Clarkson
University and a B.S.Ch.E from H. B. Technological
University, India. Malhotra is a Member of
AIChE and is a licensed professional engineer in
the states of Illinois and Ohio.
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