Chemical Engineering: 25 Must-Know Process Design Principles

This book contains all essential design methods for chemical, biochemical, biofuels, food, cattle feed, diary, medicine, fertilizer, ceramics, detergents, skincare, and other processes. The 1st section covers classic process synthesis methods connecting process inputs to outputs by selecting unit operations and recycle streams. It covers innovative process intensification synthesis by defining functions and integrating them. It also covers evaluation methods for safety, health, environment, economics, and sustainability. The 2nd section is on reaction engineering and the 3^rd on distillation. The 4th covers the base for all unit operation design, residence time distribution, heat, mass transfer, impulse transfer, and shear rate. The 5th covers design for circular economy, urban-industrial symbiosis, and industrial symbiosis. This book is relevant for industrial process researchers, developers, and designers, as well as for academic teachers, and students, as it can be used to get all relevant established information about chemical engineering design methods. The information can be found quickly due to its lucid structure with sections, chapters, sub-headings; basics, method, case application, references, and symbols and an index.

Jan Harmsen is an experienced chemical engineer. He graduated from Twente University in 1977. Since then, he engaged in multiphase reactor development, process research, process development, process design, process start-up and debottlenecking in Shell. He also has over 25 years of experience in teaching sustainable product and process design for MSc, PhD, and PDEng students, at Delft University and Groningen University and also on process scale-up for industrial practitioners.

In his career he engaged in three-phase reactor development; fixed bed, moving bed, biomass fermentation to ethanol, xanthan gum fermentation, fluid bed shale oil retorting, heat transfer in fluid beds, three-phase reactive distillation de-bottlenecking, crystallization start-up optimization by dynamic modelling, reactive distillation, and dividing wall distillation.

Since 2010 he is an independent consultant for Harmsen Consultancy, providing advice, and courses on: sustainable product and process innovation, sustainable product and process concept design, process intensification concept design, industrial process scale-up, and industrial unit operations scale-up.

He is (co) author of several books and articles. Here is a relevant selection.
Harmsen J, Bos R, Multi-phase reactors: Fundamentals, Design, Scale-up, and Application, De Gruyter, May 2023.
Harmsen J, Verkerk M, Process Intensification: Breakthrough in Design, Industrial Innovation Practices, and Education, De Gruyter, 2020.
Harmsen J. Industrial process scale-up: a practical innovation guide from idea to commercial implementation, second revised edition, Elsevier, 2019.
Harmsen J, de Haan AB, Swinkels PL. Product and Process Design, Driving Innovation, De Gruyter, 2018.
Jonker G, Harmsen J. Engineering for sustainability: a practical guide for sustainable design. Elsevier; 2012 May 18.Harmsen J, Powell JB. Sustainable development in the process industries. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; 2010.
Harmsen J, Verkerk M, A New Approach to Industrial Innovation. CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PROGRESS. 2021 Mar 1;117(3):50-53.
Harmsen J. The fundamentals of process intensification: A book review. Journal of Advanced Manufacturing and Processing. 2020 Apr;2(2):e10049.
Harmsen J. Novel sustainable industrial processes: from idea to commercial scale implementation. Green Processing and Synthesis. 2014 Jun 1;3(3):189-93.
Veerman J, Saakes M, Metz SJ, Harmsen GJ. Reverse electrodialysis: A validated process model for design and optimization. Chemical Engineering Journal. 2011 Jan 1;166(1):256-68.
Harmsen J. Process intensification in the petrochemicals industry: drivers and hurdles for commercial implementation. Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification. 2010 Jan 1;49(1):70-3.
Harmsen GJ. Reactive distillation: the front-runner of industrial process intensification: a full review of commercial applications, research, scale-up, design and operation. Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification. 2007 Sep 1;46(9):774-80.
Harmsen GJ. Industrial best practices of conceptual process design. Chemical Engineering and Processing: Process Intensification. 2004 May 1;43(5):671-5.