Special Issue "Feature Papers"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Michael Henson
Director, Center for Process Design and Control, Co-director, Institute for Massachusetts Biofuels Research; 259A Goessmann Lab, Chemical Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 686 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst , MA 01003 -3110, USA
Website: http://che.umass.edu/faculty/michael-henson
E-Mail: henson@ecs.umass.edu
Phone: +1 413 545 3481
Fax: +1 413 545 1647
Interests: complex systems modeling; microbial fermentation; particulate processes; systems biology

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue contains the first papers of Processes and is intended to highlight a diverse set of topics related to process technology for the chemical, materials, biochemical, pharmaceutical and biomedical industries. To enhance the impact of these industries on society, process innovation that allows large-scale manufacturing is essential for both established and emerging technologies. The scope of this special issue includes, but is not limited to: chemical and biochemical reaction processes: mixing, fluid processing and heat transfer systems; mass transfer, separation and purification processes; integrated process design and scale-up; and process modeling, simulation, optimization and control. We are particularly interested in receiving manuscripts that integrate experimental and theoretical/computational studies as well as contributions from industry. We invite researchers and practitioners from all areas of process technology to submit manuscripts for this important special issue of Processes.

Prof. Dr. Michael A. Henson
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first couple of issues the Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• chemical and biochemical reaction processes
• mass transfer, separation and purification processes
• mixing, fluid processing and heat transfer systems
• integrated process design and scale-up
• process modeling, simulation, optimization and control

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Averaging Level Control to Reduce off-Spec Material in A Continuous Pharmaceutical Pilot Plant
Authors: Richard Lakerveld ^1,2, Brahim Benyahia ¹, Richard D. Braatz ¹ and Paul I. Barton ¹
Affiliation: ¹ Process Systems Engineering Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA; E-Mails: R.Lakerveld@tudelft.nl; benyahia@mit.edu; braatz@mit.edu; pib@mit.edu
² Current address: Process & Energy Department, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Abstract: Continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing holds great promise to improve the reliability and profitability of future pharmaceutical processes. However, the complexity and regulatory requirements of pharmaceutical processes also poses new challenges. The development of automated control strategies for continuous pharmaceutical processes is one of those challenges. In particular, judicious use of the buffering capacity of tanks is needed to avoid high concentrations of impurities in a small fraction of the produced tablets. Therefore, an appropriate design of automated control strategies around buffer tanks will be of critical importance for the viability of future continuous pharmaceutical processes.
The aim of this paper is to identify the potential benefits of using optimal averaging level control over conventional proportional-feedback level control for several buffer tanks in a continuous pharmaceutical pilot plant. The pilot plant has been constructed within the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing and produces a pharmaceutical product from start (raw materials for intermediate compounds) to finish (coated tablets in final dosage form) in a fully continuous fashion and features several cascades of well-mixed tanks. Experimental data from the pilot plant will be used to analyze the importance of disturbance propagation in case all tanks are equipped with proportional-feedback control only. A plant-wide dynamic model will subsequently be used to investigate the potential benefits of replacing proportional-feedback control with optimal averaging level control for the studied case. The results illustrate the importance of advanced control strategies to exploit systematically the buffering capacity of a cascade of buffer tanks in future continuous pharmaceutical processes.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: In the Framework of Globalization and Sustainability that Requires Process Innovation Combining Market pull and Technology Push: Chemical Engineering, Quo Vamus?
Author: Jean-Claude Charpentier
Affiliation: Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés ENSIC/CNRS, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France; E-Mail: jean-claude.charpentier@univ-lorraine.fr
Abstract: Confronted with the globalization of the markets and acceleration of partnerships and innovation, the knowledge of the products and processes that will be competitive in the today global economy is the first requirement intended for the research in chemical engineering. Indeed a great number of the today demands concern the development of biomaterials, the preparation of nanoparticle, the controlled release of drugs, the bio nanotechnologies, the conversion of biomass, the use of ionic liquids and biphasic aqueous systems, the dynamic of relaxation of complex molecular compounds, the design of polyphasique micro structured reactors for selective reactions, and most of theses demands are clearly focused on societal requirements such as CO₂ sequestration, chemical looping combustion, methane reforming and catalytic partial oxidation to produce syngas, the synthesis of biodiesel or production of hydrogen. A great number of these topics are listed in the European and North American « roadmaps » published in the last decade which have pointed out a planetary global anxiety and concern where chemical engineering shall play a crucial role: sustainability, health, safety and environment, energy, water, food and drinks, biosystems engineering, solar energy, nuclear fusion, etc. So the existing processes and the future processes will be progressively adapted to the principles of the « green chemistry ». And the roadmaps, proposed to respond to the changing needs of the chemical and related industries in order both to meet the previous today’s economy demands and to remain competitive in global trade, militate for the evolution of chemical engineering in favour of a modern process engineering voluntarily concerned by sustainability (the green process engineering).
The second requirement is more specifically directly related to the evolving market demands that led to a double challenge. In the developing countries the manpower costs are low and there are less constraining local production regulations. In industrialized countries, there rapid growth in consumer demand for targeted end-use properties, together with constraints stemming from public and media concerns over environmental and safety issues, in combination with tools like stakeholders analysis, indicators and LCA.
Thus to respond the previous requirements for sustainable products and processes and to offer a contribution to fight against the often non-sustainable mankind of the today world production, chemical and process industries are faced with new challenges bearing on complex systems at the molecular scale, at the product scale and at the process scale.
And consequently the modern chemical and process engineering has to satisfy both the market requirements for specific nano and microscale green end-use properties of products, and the social and environmental constraints of industrial meso and macroscale green production processes. Thus an integrated system approach of complex multidisciplinary, non-linear, non equilibrium processes and transport phenomena occurring on the different time and length scales of the chemical supply chain is required which means a very good understanding how phenomena at a smaller length-scale relates to properties and behaviour at a longer length-scale is necessary (from the molecular-scale up to the production-scales).
It will be shown in this publication that the modern scientific approach of chemical engineering, «the green approach of process engineering», is led with four main objectives: (a) a total multiscale control of the processes to increase selectivity and productivity, (b) design of novel equipment based on scientific principles, new operational modes and new technologies of production, (c) the manufacturing of end-use properties and (d) the application of multiscale and multidisciplinary computational chemical engineering modeling and simulation to real-life situations involving process control, safety and life cycle analysis. These main and parallel objectives are strongly oriented towards investigations on process intensification and on the couple green products/green processes to produce much more and better in using much less, and to sustainabily produce molecules responding to environmental and economic challenges with the help of technical innovation and sustainable technologies for efficient mass and energy utilization.
Keywords: green process engineering; the time and length multiscale methodology; green product/process couple; process intensification; product design and engineering

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Systematic Sustainable Process Design and Analysis: Biodiesel Processes
Authors: Deenesh K. Babi, Seyed S. Mansouri, Mohammad Imran, Jakob K. Huusom and Rafiqul Gani*
Affiliation: Despt. of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, CAPEC, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby DK-2800, Denmark; E-Mail: rag@kt.dtu.dk
Abstract: In the manuscript, we will present a superstructure representing all possible biodiesel process flowsheets from two sources of renewable raw material (for example, palm oil and waste cooking oil) based on the current technology. Unlike other methods where different feasible flowsheets are generated from the superstructure and then simulated and analyzed, we actually simulate the entire superstructure with all its combinations simultaneously and based on the simulation results, we apply a method for sustainability analysis to identify the bottlenecks in the design-operation within the superstructure. Based on the analysis, we generate process alternatives that address the bottlenecks and at the same time, improve the sustainability of the process. In the final step, we perform the simulation and sustainability analysis on the best candidates generated from the superstructure to identify the optimal process flowsheet. In the generation of alternatives, options for process intensification are also considered. The final more sustainable biodiesel process identified from the superstructure will be presented.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Interpretation of Cellular Imaging and Protein Quantification Data in a Single Cell Molecular Simulator
Authors: Seon Kim, Ying Hsu and Andreas A. Linninger
Affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA; E-Mail: linninge@uic.edu
Abstract: Advances in optical imaging allow the imaging of single cells and cellular events with unprecedented resolution. Dynamic events including the synthesis and transport of proteins and the changes in cytoskeleton can be captured in functions of space and time. In addition, the changes in protein concentration can be quantified with semi-quantitative techniques like gel electrophoresis or absolute techniques like pulse-chase radioisotope labeling. The 3D cell model was built by image reconstruction with confocal microscopy, and cellular compartments such as the nucleus were delineated. We have a computational model that enables the integration imaging data and biochemical events. To describe discrete transcription, translation and trafficking events, this model uses a stochastic algorithm. We elucidate the cellular events behind the change of protein expression such as that of aquaporin-4 in this study upon transcriptional stimulation. The single cell simulator predicts the molecular events such as gene activation, protein synthesis and intracellular distribution to facilitate the understanding of dynamic cellular events.