Process Simulation and Technology Development
Developing and scaling-up innovative processes and technologies from lab-scale to commercial scale can be challenging and capital-intensive. SwRI has extensive experience using process simulation and capital costs software to develop and evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of scaling up petroleum, chemical, biological and fuel processes and technologies for mass, energy and dollar balances.
Applications
Examples of applications include:
- Process scale-up design from lab to pilot and pilot to commercial production
- Techno-economic evaluation of process technologies
- Process optimization
- Class 5 and Class 4 capital cost estimates for commercial units
- Concept screening
- Distillation column simulation
- Reaction engineering
- Coal-to-liquid (CTL) process development
- Gas-to-liquid (GTL) process development
- Heavy oil upgrading
- Oil blending property characterization ◦ Precipitation ◦ Fouling propensity
- Plasma gasification
- Biomass, biofuels and bio-specialty chemicals
- Enzyme-driven processes
- Solids processes and handling
Capabilities
Examples of capabilities include:
- Process design and troubleshooting
- Process scale-up
- Equipment sizing and design
- Heat and material balance reporting
- Vapor liquid equilibrium determination
- Blending simulation
- Bubble and dew point calculations
- Advanced crude oil characterization
- Dynamic simulations
- Calculation of equilibrium concentrations
- Control strategies to optimize operation, economics and equipment life
- Heat capacity, enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs energy and equilibrium constants prediction based on reaction equations