Progress in Thermal Process Engineering

Dear Colleagues,

Thermal process engineering is a mature discipline and thermal separations, like distillation or extraction, have been applied for thousands of years. However, thermal separation processes are most widespread in the chemical industry and account, to a large extent, for the energy demand of chemical production. In the past few years, the chemical industry has been struggling with stricter regulations, increased global competition, higher market volatilities and changing supply chains. To react to these burdens and maintain competitiveness, it is therefore mandatory for the chemical industry to develop more flexible and efficient processes. The fast evolution in the field of intensified processes, for instance, reactive distillation or the dividing wall column, reflects this trend very well. In recent years, the focus has moved towards the flexibility of equipment and entire production plants. The idea is to reduce CAPEX by utilization of standardized equipment that can be applied in a wide operation window. Flexible container-based or skid-mounted production units are also discussed in this context. These plants can easily be adapted to changing production volumes by a simple numbering-up, which reduces the risk of large investments in a volatile market.

The mentioned concepts also make new methods for modelling and simulation necessary. Significant progress has been made, for instance, in the field of CFD-simulations or mathematical optimization of mixed integer non-linear problems in the past few years.

Even though thermal process engineering is old, it still holds plenty of opportunities for improvements, optimization and new concepts. This Special Issue aims to reflect these efforts.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Grützner
Guest Editor

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