1 - An Introduction to Chemical Product Design
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
This chapter explains what this book is about and why its subject is important. This is a book about the design of chemical products. In our definition of chemical products, we include four categories. The first, commodity products, is familiar. Second, there are molecular products, which provide a specific benefit. Pharmaceuticals and pesticides are obvious examples. Third, there are products whose microstructure, rather than molecular structure, creates value. Paint and ice cream are examples. The fourth category, chemical products, comprises devices which effect chemical change. An example is the blood oxygenator used in open-heart surgery.
The nature of chemical product design is described in Section 1.1. It emphasizes decisions made before those of chemical process design, a more familiar topic. Chemical product design is a response to major changes in the chemical industry which have occurred in recent decades. These changes, described in Sections 1.2 and 1.3, involve a split in the industry between manufacturers of commodity chemicals and developers of specialty chemicals and other chemical products. The former are best served by process design, and the latter by product design.
The fourth section of this chapter outlines the product design procedure that we will use in the remainder of the book. This procedure is a simplification of those already used in business development. Such a simplification clarifies the basic sequence of ideas involved. Moreover, the simple procedure allows us to consider in considerable detail the technical questions implied in specific products.
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- Chemical Product Design , pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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