Unit process

(chemical engineering) In chemical manufacturing, a process that involves chemical conversion.

Processes that involve making chemical changes to materials, as a result of chemical reaction taking place. For instance, in the combustion of coal, the entering and leaving materials differ from each other chemically: coal and air enter, and flue gases and residues leave the combustion chamber. Combustion is therefore a unit process. Unit processes are also referred to as chemical conversions.

Together with unit operations (physical conversions), unit processes (chemical conversions) form the basic building blocks of a chemical manufacturing process. Most chemical processes consist of a combination of various unit operations and unit processes.

The basic tools of the chemical engineer for the design, study, or improvement of a unit process are the mass balance, the energy balance, kinetic rate of reaction, and position of equilibrium (the last is included only if the reaction does not go to completion). See also Chemical engineering; Unit operations.

In manufacturing, a unit process is single component part of the end-to-end manufacturing process that transforms raw materials into finished goods.

Unit processing in chemical engineering

Unit processing is the basic processing in chemical engineering. Together with unit operations it forms the main principle of the varied chemical industries. Each genre of unit processing follows the same chemical law much as each genre of unit operations follows the same physical law.

Chemical engineering unit processing consists of the following important processes:

• Oxidation
• Reduction
• Hydrogenation
• Dehydrogenation
• Hydrolysis
• Hydration
• Dehydration
• Halogenation
• Nitrification
• Sulfonation
• Ammoniation
• Alkaline fusion
• Alkylation
• Dealkylation
• Esterification
• Polymerization
• Polycondensation
• Catalyze

References

• Review of What are Unit manufacturing processes from the National Academies Press

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