Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620

Process and product engineering — achievements, present

and future challenges
K. Wintermantel*
BASF Aktiengesellschaft, 67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany

Abstract

In this paper, present and future challenges faced by chemical engineers are discussed. To place the development of this discipline in
its industrial and social context, a short history of chemical engineering in one of the major global chemical companies (BASF) is
given. The ‘scientific part’ of chemical engineering consists in breaking down real complex systems into subsystems, which are then
described using our understanding of fundamental chemical and physical processes. The ‘engineering part’ of chemical engineering
consists in using this new found knowledge in the design and construction of a working plant which is capable of producing the
desired product, even if our understanding of the single subsystems is today incomplete. From the components that make up our
discipline, process engineering has in the last several decades attained a high degree of scientific maturity. Further developments are
needed and expected in the improved description of fundamental chemical and physical processes necessary particularly to model
reaction systems. The other field, product engineering, is a younger, less mature area where the scientific elucidation of the
structure/property relationship at molecular and microscopic levels first needs to be tackled. This knowledge is required to model
disperse systems so as to design products and develop appropriate production facilities. Improving the design and evaluation of
complex systems for the production of real products will require further research into methodologies, tools and strategies. Firstly,
these improvements will enable us to combine various unit operations so as to obtain an optimal overall process within an optimally
designed production plant. And secondly, this individual production plant should in turn be optimally integrated into the entire
production site. Such procedures must take into account both the requirements of customers as well as environmental concerns. The
challenges faced by the chemical engineering community can only be met if two preconditions are fulfilled: both organisations
carrying out basic research and R&D departments focussed on applied research within companies must be at the cutting edge of
technology. And furthermore, they must work even more closely together if we are to meet the challenges described in this paper. It is
also essential that young engineers and scientists as part of their education should be integrated into this research effort and become
fully committed to it.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction engineering as a result of both advances in theory and

I consider it to be a great honour to have been invited
to give the Danckwerts Memorial Lecture 1998. Very
much in P. V. Danckwerts tradition, I see it as my task
today to take a step back and take a look at how
chemical engineering as a discipline has developed. This
may help us to see more clearly what direction we need to
go in the future to ensure our continuing success in
meeting the challenges that will face us.
I would like to focus on the interactions between
industrial requirements and the development of chemical
* Tel.: 00 49 621 60 43754; fax: 00 49 621 60 21050; e-mail: klaus.
wintermantel@basf-ag.de.
applied research. My view is shaped on the one hand by
the experiences and responsibilities I have as head of
chemical engineering research and development at a
major chemical company and on the other hand by my
experience as a visiting professor at the University of
Stuttgart. In particular I would like to highlight the
mutual benefits that universities and R&D departments
within companies have been enjoying through their his-
tory of close co-operation.
I will do this by first taking a brief look at the history of
BASF company. History makes it clear that chemical
engineering as a scientific discipline developed in large
part as a response to market forces — to meeting society’s
needs. I will try to show how the body of knowledge
developed over all these years in a dialogue between

0009-2509/99/$ — see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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1602 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
universities and industry has been used to help meet
these needs. And I am convinced that the way chemical
engineers have ‘‘structured’’ this knowledge has put us in
a good position to cope with future challenges too. I will
then talk about the changes, which chemical engineering
has to deal with now and in the near future. Finally,
I would like to draw some conclusions for ongoing re-
search as well as the educational needs for future chem-
ical engineers.
Fig. 1. Growth in BASF sales and challenges to chemical engineering
1865—1940.
Fig. 2. BASF Ludwigshafen site in 1866.
2. Historical review
The enormous increase in chemical industry’s product
range and production volumes in the last century resulted
in a series of challenges that chemical engineering has
had to meet. I would like to take a look back at the
chemical engineering milestones in the history of BASF
(Figs. 1 and 14) to identify which factors led to past
success and may be keys to continuing success in the
future for the process industry as a whole (Wintermantel,
1997).
BASF was founded in 1865 and its first products were
the synthetic dyes fuchsia and alizarin. The company was
founded with the aim of not only producing the dyes
themselves, but of developing a company with a high
degree of vertical integration. We started with raw mater-
ials and auxiliaries in order to produce precursors and
intermediates, which then enabled us to produce the
finished products required by the customer. In those
days, the intermediates included aniline and soda, which
gave rise to the company name Badische Anilin- und
Sodafabrik (which means ‘Baden aniline and soda
factory’). The basic idea and aim was thus to create
an integrated production — in other words, a complete
system.
As a result of these ambitious aims, BASF had already
grown to a considerable size by 1866 (Fig. 2). It continued
K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620 1603

Fig. 3. BASF Ludwigshafen site in 1901.

Fig. 4. Distillation apparatus used in 1865.

1604 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 5. Reconstruction of Prof. Habers experimental setup for the ammonia synthesis.
to grow rapidly in subsequent years, as shown in a
picture from 1901 (Fig. 3).
A characteristic of this early period was that the pro-
cesses were largely carried out at atmospheric pressure,
sometimes in open vessels, and at moderate temper-
atures. The large pieces of equipment were mostly copies
of equipment found in laboratories, but made of steel and
brick instead of glass because of their size. Output was
increased by installing parallel equipment, as can be seen
in Fig. 4, which shows the dimethylaniline distillation
plant in 1865. At the end of the last century, the handling
of large amounts of gas presented a new challenge. This
challenge had to be overcome before sulphuric acid
using the contact process and synthetic indigo could be
produced.
A milestone in the company’s history at the beginning
of this century was the ability to synthesise ammonia,
produce it in large quantities, and use it as an intermedi-
ate for the production of many downstream products
(von Nagel, 1991). Research chemists at this time were
looking for ways to increase food production through
the use of synthetic fertiliser in order to feed Europe’s
growing population. They were searching for a synthetic
fertiliser containing chemically bonded nitrogen, which
would be able to replace the expensive and unreliable
saltpetre imports from Chile. One vision at this time
was to make use of nitrogen in the air and to produce
in a first step ammonia from hydrogen and atmos-
pheric nitrogen. Many research scientists were trying to
develop such a synthesis route for the production of
ammonia.
In 1908, Fritz Haber in his institute at the Technical
University of Karlsruhe succeeded in synthesising am-
monia using a catalytic high-pressure process. He offered
to sell the rights to this process to BASF, which would
then try to develop an industrial scale production process
for ammonia (Fig. 5). In contrast to other techniques
which had been proposed, the process developed by
Haber held out promise of producing satisfactory yields.
However, to apply pressures of more than 200 bar and
temperatures of 500°C in a large reactor was not tech-
nically feasible at that time. Carl Bosch solved this diffi-
cult problem by developing a high-pressure reactor,
which was capable of withstanding such extreme
conditions (Fig. 6). Intensive scientific efforts involving
many individual steps were necessary to take this
product idea all the way from the laboratory stage
to full-scale production. In 1913 the first large-scale
 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 6. Bosch Reactor for ammonia synthesis.
ammonia plant was built in Oppau near Ludwigshafen.
It had an annual production capacity of 7200 metric tons.
The next two figures may help us better understand the
development that ammonia production has undergone
since the early years: Fig. 7 shows the Oppau works in
the 1920s with its numerous power stations. In 1921,
65,000 metric tons of ammonia and its downstream prod-
ucts were produced at the Oppau works. Fig. 8 shows our
latest ammonia plant, which came on stream in 1991 in
Antwerp and has a production capacity of 490,000 metric
tons per year. This is 7 times the capacity the Oppau
facility had in 1921. A comparison of these two figures
gives a very good idea of what ‘process intensification’
really means.
In the past decades, improvements made to catalysts
and a tightly integrated energy and power system have
enabled a further drastic decrease in the specific energy
consumption for the production of this ‘classical’ chem-
ical (Fig. 9) (Bakemeier et al., 1985). Today, ammonia is
a commodity, namely a standard product whose produc-
tion technology is well known. Production plants can
now be bought ‘off the rack’. The profitability of ammo-
nia production depends to a high degree on the availabil-
ity and price of natural gas as a raw material. It also
depends on the optimal incorporation of the process into
1605
an integrated production system. Many basic chemical
products have a comparable ‘innovation curve’ within
their product life cycle, for example methanol and for-
maldehyde.
The example of ammonia can serve as a paradigm: new
product ideas are created as a response to customer’s and
society’s needs. To take these ideas from the drawing
board to full-scale production is a technological chal-
lenge that must be seen as such. Continuous further
development of the process is then necessary to stay
ahead of the competition.
Going back to the 1920s further products started being
developed and produced using high-pressure synthesis at
BASF (urea, methanol and synthetic fuel). Being able to
cope effectively with pressure, temperature and corrosion
in the reaction stage was the crucial challenge. The focus
of chemical, technological and process engineering devel-
opment work was aimed at enabling reactions to take
place. However, even then, ‘the optimal design of the
entire process chain’ had to be taken into account at the
same time — an objective, which Carl Bosch emphasised
in his Nobel Prize speech (Bosch, 1932).
The need for systematic and substantially formalised
descriptions of the various process steps and of the over-
all process continued to increase in subsequent years.
The reasons for this were the rising number of different
products and the tremendous increase in production
volumes. In addition, more demanding production re-
quirements forced chemical engineers to develop new
processing concepts: the transition from batch processes
to continuous processes had to be achieved. This devel-
opment led away from parallel production lines to large
single-line plants which were, particularly at the begin-
ning of the plastics age in the 1950s and 1960s, needed for
producing the necessary monomers. An additional chal-
lenge was presented by the increasing length of process
chains which led to a requirement for a higher degree of
purity of the individual product streams.
It was not just BASF that had to address these
challenges: they were taken on by the whole chemical
industry, universities and the newly founded institutions
and led to considerable research activities. In Fig. 10 you
can see how the number of such institutions increased
world-wide in particular in the second decade of this
century (Bla{, 1993).
As far as research activities are concerned, pioneering
studies undertaken within our company were for
example mixing experiments and the systematic measure-
ment and documentation of physical property data. In
1931, studies had started on the design of stirred vessels
and agitators so that they could be designed reliably
when belt drives (Fig. 11) were replaced by modern elec-
tric motors. Altogether more than 80,000 individual ex-
periments were carried out within the lab facility shown
in Fig. 12. The results obtained then are still valid today.
The systematic measurement and recording of product
1606 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620

Fig. 7. BASF Oppau site in the 1920s.

Fig. 8. BASF ammonia plant in Antwerp, operational since 1991.

 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620 1607

properties were also started in 1931 in our Engineering
Laboratory. One result was a heat atlas, which was the
precursor of the VDI heat atlas (VDI 1997), a standard
work for all process engineers in Germany today. Fig. 13
shows two pages of the 1942 edition.
A real explosion in growth of products and production
volumes then occurred after the Second World War, as
you can see from Fig. 14 (whereas Fig. 1 gives sales in
millions of Reichsmarks, Fig. 14 gives sales in billions of
Deutsch marks!). The idea of ‘unit operations’ created at
the beginning of this century at the MIT was systemati-
cally further developed by industry and universities.
In the 1970s and 1980s, we faced new challenges. The
rapid increase in production volume led to problems

Fig. 9. Specific energy consumption in ammonia plants. Fig. 10. Institutionalisation of Chemical Engineering.

Fig. 11. Production Plant for dyestuff in the 1920s.

1608 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 12. Test facility for agitators.
related to emissions and process residues. Society focused
their attention on the environmental impact of process
industry and required products which not only met their
actual needs but could also be produced, recycled and
disposed of in an environmentally friendly way. At the
same time it was necessary to make optimal use of raw
materials and energy because of the oil crises. These
topics are still with us today. In addition, competition
has in no way diminished: ever-higher levels of purity and
quality accompanied by lower costs and shorter develop-
ment times are demanded today.
Thanks to the further development of process engin-
eering methods and tools, chemical engineers have been
successful in meeting challenges like the ones shown in
Figs. 1 and 14. In particular, however, this was possible
because highly qualified engineers were being educated
at universities and were then able to go into industry
to solve problems in a systematic, step-by-step way to
develop new cutting-edge technologies.
I have given this historical review to show the extent to
which societies and customer’s expectations have
changed — and this has had enormous ramifications for
products and processes of the chemical industry. This in
turn has been the driving force behind the development
of chemical engineering as a scientific discipline: re-
searchers in both universities and companies have been
trying to meet the objectives of industry in a more general
way. Together they have generated the scientific founda-
tions required for meeting these objectives in a com-
plementary fashion.
3. Body of knowledge
The task of chemical engineering in industry — and this
is shown by the historical review — has been and always
will be to design and implement complete systems. Com-
plete systems means both individual processes and plants
for producing products with specifically defined product
properties and also the integration of the individual pro-
cesses into an overall production site in terms of mater-
ials, energy and logistics.
If the processes in complete systems are to be precisely
described and controlled, their complexity first has to be
drastically reduced and subsystems have to be described
in terms of models. In this approach, process engineering
is no different from other scientific disciplines such as
physics and chemistry. Chemical engineering had re-
duced complexity in two ways (Fig. 15): the first step in
reducing complexity was to divide the complete pro-
cesses into individual subsystems (unit operations or
other functional units like parts or combinations of unit
operations). To describe these subsystems in terms of
models, a second step was necessary. The properties of
real products had to be reduced to the essential features
required for describing a particular subsystem.
However, as an engineering discipline, chemical engin-
eering has to look fully, now as in the past, at the
complexity of real complete systems, since it is only the
complete processes which make it possible to produce
products with the desired properties. When we come to
the synthesis step the focus is on examining the effects
and interactions between the individual subsystems. To
do this we need procedures, methods, and tools, which
are also subject to strict scientific criteria. However, in
contrast to the modelling of subsystems, it is often only
possible to generalise the procedure but not the solution
devised for a specific problem.
It is obvious that the description of subsystems and the
optimisation of overall systems have to be tackled on
different levels of consideration (Fig. 16). The modelling
of the individual process steps requires analysis at the
microscopic and even at the molecular level. In contrast,
the systems engineering studies are carried out on the
macro and mega levels. The goal of these studies is to
integrate the individual steps in a particular process.
These processes need then to be integrated in turn into
the overall production complex while at the same time
taking into account the requirements of both customers
and the larger society.
It would be unrealistic to expect that in the near future
one single simulation tool will be able to tackle all levels
simultaneously. It will continue to be the task of chemical
engineering to analyse subsystems at that level, which is
 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620 1609

Fig. 13. Excerpt from Heat Atlas (1942).

Fig. 15. Body of chemical engineering knowledge.

Fig. 14. Growth in BASF sales and challenges to chemical engineering
since 1950.

Because today not every subsystem can be modelled

adequate to represent the individual problem complexity.
However, the models based on this knowledge must
reduce the complexity of the lower level findings in such
a way that the results can be integrated efficiently into the
description of the problem solving at the higher level.
precisely and because there is still a lack of integration
methods and tools, chemical engineers need to draw on
their extensive experience of real overall systems. This
includes experimental verification of a process design
which takes place at the macro level.
1610 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 16. Levels of consideration in process development.
Fig. 16 shows the common view of the chemical engin-
eering community since the Amundson Report in 1988
(Amundson, 1988), namely that the levels on which pro-
cesses are studied have to go beyond that of unit opera-
tions if interaction of complex systems is to be analysed
and described correctly. Incidentally, this figure is based
on a slide, which Villermaux showed in one of his last
presentations at the chemical engineering World Con-
gress in San Diego in 1996 to illustrate these relation-
ships.
You all are very familiar with the advanced state of
development which chemical engineering has reached
since the beginning of this century, particularly in the
field of process engineering; after all, you have par-
ticipated over the past decades in building up this body
of knowledge and giving it form and substance.
The body of knowledge has grown to be a versatile
scientific discipline, which is not only used to solve
problems in chemical industry. Therefore, chemical en-
gineers educated in this discipline and trained to apply its
know-how are very much in demand in the process
industry as a whole (Fig. 17; Müller-Steinhagen, 1998).
But we now have to ask ourselves one important ques-
tion: what are the challenges facing chemical engineering
today and in the near future in the process industry and
how must we respond to them? In answering this ques-
tion, I will make a distinction between the fields of
process and product engineering.
4. Present and future challenges
4.1. Process engineering
The understanding of the individual process steps and
their description in terms of models help us to design,
build and operate reliable industrial scale plants. The
actual procedure to follow in doing this depends on the
complexity of products and reactions: process engineers
Fig. 17. Chemical engineers in the U.K. process industry.
normally have to deal with products, which consist of
relatively small molecules (as it is the case for example
with basic chemicals or plastic monomers). Properties
and quality of these products are essentially a function
of the concentrations achieved, which in turn are de-
termined by the correct choice of process steps and
equipment.
An engineer designing a process for such products
usually faces one of two possible situations: either, the
reaction is fully understood and can be modelled suffi-
ciently or the reaction mechanisms, in particular, the
interaction of kinetics and fluid dynamics, cannot be
described in a detailed fashion.
In the first case he is able to simulate large-scale
processes completely on a computer using mainly phys-
ical property data. The development and the implemen-
tation of the molecular thermodynamics of fluid-phase
equlibria was an important milestone in this regard
(Prausnitz et al., 1986). For such processes it is possible to
scale them up by a factor of 1 : 40,000 from the laboratory
to the large-scale plant (Figs. 18 and 19).
In the second case, one starts the process design as well
with simulation procedures based on simplified models.
But then, it is of crucial importance to verify the simula-
tion experimentally and to test the design in an inte-
grated experimental plant with closed loops of all recycle
streams to see that it actually works. Only in this way can
the possible effects of by-products not included in the
computer model be detected. To keep the time and cost
of experiments low, the use of miniplant technology is
preferred today. This enables all the functions of the
process to be tested on a small scale (liter).
Scale-up of such processes without further intermedi-
ate steps requires more refined models, particularly for
the reaction zones. We need these models to be able to
design both a properly functioning miniplant and a large-
scale plant (Trainham, 1994). Creating such models is the
goal of much research effort today. In this context high
hopes are now held for the simulation of flow phenomena
K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620 1611

Fig. 18. Miniplant.

Fig. 19. Production plant.

1612 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The aim is to
create a basis for better modelling of micromixing processes.
CFD calculations already allow the local fluid-
dynamic conditions in a piece of equipment to be ana-
lysed in great detail. Valuable conclusions about mixing
and reaction behaviour can be drawn both in labora-
tory and in large-scale equipment. For example, the
non-steady-state mixing of a reaction stopper can be
described very well in quantitative terms (Pfleger et al.,
1998). The mixing times and quality of mixing required
can be predicted with considerable accuracy. The velo-
city vectors in Fig. 20 show the development over time of
the flow field induced by rising gas bubbles and the
resulting spatial distribution of stopper concentration in
the liquid phase at several different points in time. Probe
measurements prove that the transients determined in
our simulations correlate strongly with our experimental
results (Fig. 21).
For two-phase reactions it is important to describe
mass transfer processes and the associated reaction pro-
gress in order to obtain quantitative results (Sokolichin
et al., 1997). Studies done in our laboratory show that the
dynamical processes observed can be represented very
accurately by simulation (Fig. 22). However, a high res-
Fig. 20. Computational fluid dynamics: gas-induced mixing process for storage tanks.
olution in space and time is required to describe this
dynamic behaviour.
It is only by continuing to make progress in this area
that it will be possible for us to give scientifically more
accurate descriptions of the influences of reaction kine-
tics and fluid dynamics in the future. This in turn makes
inexpensive and rapid process development possible and
opens up further possibilities to combine reaction and
separation steps within one piece of equipment as is
the case in reactive distillation (Okasinski et al., 1998;
Bessling et al., 1997).
Moving up from the subsystem level methods and
tools are required for the functional integration of the
individual process steps and the integration of the indi-
vidual production processes into the overall production
complex. Particularly in those cases in which the produc-
tion processes can now be purchased ‘off the rack’ (e.g. for
basic chemicals and monomers), the correct integration,
i.e. in terms of materials, energy and logistics is crucial in
determining whether these products can be produced
competitively.
I would again like to use BASF as an example to
illustrate the advantages which a company can have from
an optimally structured production complex — what we
 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
at BASF call a ‘Verbund’ (Fig. 23): the Ludwigshafen site,
one of the largest chemical complexes in the world, at
present consists of 350 plants. Simple analysis shows that
if these plants were spread over 70 sites with 5 plants
each, BASF would forego a profit of DM 1 billion every
year.
A lot of work is currently being done to improve the
functional design and control of individual processes and
Fig. 21. Computational fluid dynamics: comparison between experi-
mental and simulation results.
Fig. 22. Computational fluid dynamics: dynamic behaviour of a bubble column.
1613
their integration (Gilles, 1991; Schuler, 1998; Schem-
becker et al., 1996). But today methods and tools, which
enable us to optimise the whole route (beginning with the
individual process steps up to the overall production site)
using one and the same criteria are only available with
regard to energy consumption. In this particular field
methods to optimise the separation sequence and Pinch
Technology are well established and widely used Linn-
hoff, 1994; Kaibel, 1987). As far as other integration factors
are concerned further methods and tools for structuring
and evaluating overall system, are still needed.
In summary, process engineering has an established
body of knowledge with clear structures, which can be
taught very effectively at universities and can be used by
industry to pursue specific objectives. Further research is
needed if we are to further improve our ability to model
reactions. We also need to continue developing methods
and tools for structuring and evaluating overall systems
for the synthesis and evaluation of overall processes and
their integration into production sites.
4.2. Product engineering
Today we recognise a constantly growing demand
within industry for chemical engineering expertise in
the field of product engineering (Villadsen, 1997). The
1614 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 23. Benefits of the ‘Verbund’ at Ludwigshafen.
reasons for this growing demand are:
z about 60% of all products, which a chemical company
such as ICI, DuPont or BASF now sells to its cus-
tomers, are polymeric, crystalline or amorphous solids.
These products have to have a clearly defined physical
size and shape in order to meet the desired quality
standards. This also applies to emulsified and paste-
like products;
z 2 and the trend continues in this direction (Quad-
beck-Seeger, 1990). New developments are increasingly
concerned not with classical basic and industrial chem-
icals but rather with highly specialised materials, active
compounds and special effect chemicals. These are very
much more complex in terms of their molecular struc-
ture than classical chemicals are.
What is the state of our knowledge as chemical engin-
eers in the field of product engineering?
The quality and properties of solid, emulsified or paste-
like products are, after the reaction is completed, no longer
determined solely by the concentrations achieved in the
separation operations. The physical form along the entire
process route plays an even more important role. So
developing such a production process requires taking the
product properties desired by our customers into consid-
eration from the very beginning. End consumers generally
do not judge products according to technical specifica-
tions, but rather according to quality features, such as
taste, smell, feel and handling properties. Therefore as
a first step it is necessary to find physical parameters,
which allow us to quantify those subjective impressions.
Only then can the process be designed and controlled in
an appropriate manner. Thus the design relies on a thor-
ough understanding of the structure— property relation-
ship at both the microscopic and molecular level, as I will
illustrate in a moment by using two examples.
For manufacturing products with complex molecular
structures many different technologies have been used.
These technologies were initially developed by trial and
error and have proved their usefulness over time (Fig. 24).
The recipes and the specific production know-how are
Fig. 24. Technological maturity and our scientific understanding of the
underlying physics and chemistry.
carefully guarded secrets by the companies, which have
been successful so far. A complete scientific elucidation of
the underlying chemical and physical processes is still
a long way off. We are not yet able to describe these
processes in a way that allows us to apply this knowledge
to other systems and process conditions.
We are still a long way away from being able to model
mass transfer processes as a function of the relevant
product and equipment parameters. This is very different
from the case where we have products with less complex
molecular structures. For this reason, we cannot yet even
conceive of scaling up a process by a factor of 1 : 40,000
from the laboratory to the industrial plant, as is possible
for classical chemicals.
What, given this situation, first needs to be done is to
reduce the gap between the present-day level of produc-
tion technology and our understanding of underlying
physical and chemical processes. And that in turn will
enable us to further improve our production technology.
Product quality is determined at the micro- and nano-
level. Therefore, to be able to design and control the
product quality — and make the leap from the nano level
to the process level — the chemical engineer will have to
face challenges which go far beyond the present-day
knowledge of a process engineer. Fig. 25 shows a list of
the technological know-how, which I consider necessary
in the future for successful product engineering and it
clearly shows where I think the priorities lie.
Let me illustrate these thoughts using examples from
the fields of emulsification and crystallisation. First the
emulsification example (Schubert, 1997; Stang, 1998):
Many emulsions, for example ointments or even milk, are
ideal nutrients for many micro-organisms. They spoil
quickly due to microbial growth unless appropriate
countermeasures such as pasteurisation or sterilisation
are taken. A particularly elegant method is offered by
water-in-oil emulsions: since micro-organisms can grow
only in the aqueous phase, they can be enclosed in
droplets and their growth can thus be prevented. A
 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 25. Product engineering — necessary knowledge and skills needed
in the future.
Fig. 26. Emulsification process: effect of the equipment shape.
prerequisite is that the droplets are not significantly lar-
ger than 1 lm. Even stricter demands are made on emul-
sions which are required for intravenous feeding. To
avoid the danger of fat embolisms, these must have
a mean droplet diameter of less than 1 lm with no drop-
lets larger than 2 lm.
Such ‘mini’ emulsions with a droplet diameter of
significantly less than 1 lm and a narrow droplet size
distribution can only be generated in high-pressure hom-
ogenisers with a high-energy input and suitable nozzle
geometry (Fig. 26). Moreover, the droplets generated in
the equipment must not coalesce during emulsification.
This makes it necessary to find emulsifier systems which
stabilise the droplets sufficiently quickly (Fig. 27).
In modelling the emulsification process, the overall
process has to be divided into two substeps. In the first
step the droplets are generated by mechanical energy and
in the second step the droplets are stabilised before they
once again coalesce. The resulting product quality, namely
the resulting droplet sizes and droplet size distribution, is
determined not only by how well the disperse phase has
been broken up into small droplets but also by how well
1615
Fig. 27. Emulsification process: breaking up of droplets and their
stabilisation.
the equipment, process conditions and emulsifier have
been matched to one another. The kinetics of interface
formation, i.e. the processes at a molecular level, deter-
mines whether the desired end product properties will
really be achieved, even if the required droplet size had
been achieved in the first substep.
Now to the second example, namely that of crystallisa-
tion (Wintermantel, 1997; Rauls et al., 1996): The shape
and size of crystals in an industrial crystallisation process
can be influenced first of all by controlling the temper-
ature and the concentration pattern. Process control
alone does not always give satisfactory results, parti-
cularly with regard to reproducibility of crystal size and
shape. This is frequently due to just small traces of
foreign substances, which can have a remarkable effect
on the crystallisation process.
The photograph on the left in Fig. 28 shows the results
of crystallisation from a feed solution contaminated with
unwanted by-products. The small size and needle shape
of the product makes it difficult to isolate and, because of
its high residual moisture content, a high amount of
energy is required to dry the product. A much coarser
product can be crystallised by using pure water in the lab,
and this product shows a more compact crystal form.
The picture on the right shows a very surprising further
improvement: addition of some 10 ppm of an anionic
surfactant drastically changes the particle size. In order
to understand the mechanisms causing these changes so
that we can utilise them in a controlled manner, we must
first of all explain the structure-activity relationships on
a molecular level.
Fig. 29 shows what we have to do: in computer simula-
tions, diagrams of the molecular structure of the most
important crystal surfaces must be generated from X-ray
crystal structure data. In the same computer simulation,
contaminant molecules as well as molecules which are
expected to have a beneficial effect on the crystallisation
1616 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 28. Influences of impurities on the crystallisation of a carboxylic acid.
Fig. 29. Prediction of crystal habit modification using molecular
modeling.
process are placed on these surfaces and their adsorption
energy is calculated. Our hypothesis is that the growth
rate of a surface becomes lower as the adsorption energy
increases. By comparing relative adsorption energies, the
modified crystal shape to be expected can be predicted.
This is a great step forward! The figure shows as an
example that the dye molecule amaranth is adsorbed
onto the 001 surface of ammonium sulphate crystals with
the highest adsorption energy in comparison with the
other crystal surfaces. According to our calculations, the
somewhat block-shaped crystal produced in the pure
system becomes a flat shaped crystal having a large 001
surface area. This can be verified experimentally (Fig. 30).
These examples should have made two things clear:
1. The study of a system on the molecular level and the
underlying theory are indispensable for product
engineering. Many quality features can only be de-
signed in a targeted way if the molecular processes are
understood at this level.
2. The scientific methods employed here, are chemical
engineering methods: equilibrium states are examined,
transport processes and kinetics are analysed separ-
ately and these are linked again by means of models.
But now we are talking about microscopic or molecu-
lar levels relevant to product quality. Although
we take the properties of particular products into
consideration, the methods are still applicable to dif-
ferent products.
But what about systems-engineering methods and
tools? Do we need them also for products with high
molecular weight and complex molecular structure? One
must remember the products in question are generally
not mass-produced products but ones which are produc-
ed in small batches and just in time for delivery to the
customer. The needs of customers are constantly chang-
ing and evolving, and therefore these products often have
only a short life cycle.
To be competitive under these conditions too, it is
particularly important to analyse and optimise the sup-
ply chains. So let us have a closer look at this. In contrast
to classical process engineering, where thermodynamic
 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620 1617

Fig. 30. Modification of crystal shape by additives.

simulations and evaluations (especially using mass and

energy balances) play a dominant role, here we are
interested in the time that individual process steps take, and
these have to be simulated and evaluated in terms of costs.
We know such event-driven simulations from manu-
facturing industry (e.g. automobile manufacturing).
However, in order to be able to use them in the chemical
industry, there was an additional challenge to meet: in
manufacturing engineering, the location of a particular
component at a given time is well defined. The compo-
nent is either in a machine or in a transport device. In
a chemical process, by contrast, a batch can be found in
a tank, a pump, a filter and a storage container simulta-
neously (Fig. 29).
New simulation tools help solve these problems by Fig. 31. Discrete event driven simulation of a production sequence.
simulating both material flows and states within the
individual pieces of equipment. This dynamic simulation
enables us to see in a matter of seconds whether bottle-
necks may occur in the plant over the course of days, a dynamic simulation of the process, we examined the
months or years. These can then be eliminated using effect of two possible changes on the total costs.
additional pieces of equipment such as tanks, buffers, 1. Up until now we have used a ‘push system’ in which
filters, larger pumps or by making additional resources the orders are steered through the processing chain
available such as energy or manpower. The computer according to a fixed production schedule. But we are
simulation also shows which alternative plant and stor- now analysing a possible change in production strat-
age strategies provide the greatest cost benefit. egy to a ‘pull system’ in which each stage produces the
In the production plant shown in Fig. 31 four different amount of product required in the following stage.
intermediates are produced in process 1 in a multiproduct 2. The other possible change we are considering would
plant operated on a campaign basis (Wollenweber et al., be the relocation of the wet milling from upgrading
1998). In process 2, final upgrading of the approximately step to process 1. This would make storage in liquid
25 end products takes place in individual batches. Using form possible.
1618 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 32. Comparison of costs for different production strategies.
In both simulation scenarios, we must be able to meet
delivery deadlines to the customer at least 99% of the
time. The change to pull system offered a cost advantage
thanks to lower storage costs. The relocation of the wet
milling step led to lower cleaning costs for this process
step and thus to a reduction in total costs. This in turn led
to a shift to longer campaigns (Fig. 32).
This was just a simple example. Many different scen-
arios can be tested within a short time, thus allowing the
rapid identification of an optimal solution. For instance,
the simulation of an entire production year takes only
10 min on a computer.
It should be clear from this example that such com-
puter simulations enable us to design individual steps,
structure the whole process and place the individual
process in the overall context of production more easily
and quickly than was possible in the past.
Determining how much of a product should be pro-
duced, the best means of storage and transportation, and
customers’ daily requirements are also simulated and
simultaneously optimised, thus ensuring short delivery
times and optimal use of working capital.
In summary, the following can be said about product
engineering: the design of products with complex struc-
tures (emulsions, plastics, soft products and solids) and
the development of processes for producing them require
first and foremost, process and product engineering ex-
pertise. This is particularly the case when it is important
for the description of the product states and their changes
to be on a scientific basis. The demand for chemical
engineers who have the required product design know-
how has been rapidly increasing in the process industry.
The background knowledge that these chemical engi-
neers need to have differs considerably in some ways
from that of ‘classically’ educated process engineers. They
need to fully understand processes at a molecular level
(e.g. surface physics and chemistry) to be able to design
production processes that ensure those products can
consistently meet the customers’ quality requirements.
Fig. 33. Growth in BASF sales and number of chemical engineers in its
chemical engineering R&D department.
To meet these future challenges, considerable research
effort will be necessary in the near future. Production
plants and business processes have first to be analysed
using simulations, which address issues at the ‘macro’
and ‘mega’ level. Such tools for top-down optimisation
make it possible to evaluate the plants and processes in
terms of time and costs. Here too, further development
work is necessary.
5. Consequences for industry, research and education
The look back at the history of BASF shows us how
important consistent further development of chemical
engineering knowledge has been for the company. Fur-
ther extending this body of knowledge was possible be-
cause the needs of industry were addressed, and chemical
engineers in universities and companies each made their
own respective contributions to solving the problems
that arose. This type of problem-oriented technological
development will remain very important for the future
success of our discipline. However, the following factors
— which proved their usefulness in the past — continue to
be key prerequisites for future success:
1. The universities must train highly qualified engineers
who will then be able to go into industry and address
the problems awaiting them using the tools and
methods of science. These chemical engineers — when
necessary — must be able to work closely with their
colleagues in universities and research institutes.
The number of university educated chemical engin-
eers in the chemical engineering R&D unit of BASF is
shown in Fig. 33. It can be seen that the number of
chemical engineers directly correlates with the in-
crease in the company’s sales (Wintermantel, 1997).
The success story of chemical engineers at BASF
began with Wilhelm Nusselt, who was, as the first
engineer, entrusted with process engineering tasks in
a narrow sense and tackled these using scientific
 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
Fig. 34. From invention to innovation.
methods. He was hired by BASF in 1918 and was
given the task of optimising the energy balance of the
ammonia process and other processes.
2. The second prerequisite, which I would like to empha-
size is that although university research and education
is guided by the problems encountered in industry,
university scientists should not focus narrowly on
meeting the needs of industry but rather on extending
our fundamental knowledge.
In 1920, Wilhelm Nusselt returned to university in
order to carry our fundamental research and pass his
knowledge on to students. This path, namely gathering
experience in industry and going back to the universi-
ties with an applications perspective, has since then
been taken by 20 other chemical engineers from our
unit.
3. Such a research and training network requires an
understanding on the part of industry that the source
of many innovation processes lies in fundamental
research (Marcinowski, 1998). Furthermore, research
and development departments within companies have
to recognise that the goal of developing progressive
and competitive technologies can be reached only by
being fully aware of the pioneering research being
carried out elsewhere (Fig. 34). And industry must,
as a consequence, value in-house research efforts as
highly as communication and cooperation with the
people and institutes who are responsible for doing
basic research.
The examples I talked about, i.e. the CFD-applica-
tions, emulsification, crystallisation and the discrete
event driven simulation can all serve as examples for
the successful collaboration between researchers at
universities and in companies. When working in the
area of ‘exploratory research’ (shown in Fig. 34) we are
interested in further developing our body of know-
ledge in a way that enables us — to detect problem
areas where our knowledge is insufficient and — in
close co-operation with university researchers — to
1619
remedy these deficiencies — to develop strategies to
make use of this new knowledge in an optimal way.
6. Summary
1. A look back at the history of BASF has shown us that
both the needs of customers as well as society as
a whole have an important effect on the process indus-
try — these needs largely determine what products are
produced and how they are produced. These needs
determine the challenges that chemical engineering
has to face and the know-how chemical engineers need
to have.
2. The task of chemical engineers in industry is to design
and construct complete systems. By complete systems
we mean both processes and plants that produce
products that fully meet the customers needs. And of
course complete system also means integrated produc-
tion sites.
3. As an engineering discipline based on scientific prin-
ciples, chemical engineering has two main tasks:
(a) to model subsystems using the theoretical and
methodological scientific knowledge. In this re-
spect, chemical engineering is no different from the
natural sciences.
(b) to develop methods and procedures, which allow
real systems in all their complexity to be designed
and constructed even if not all subsystems have
been precisely modelled due to a lack of a thor-
ough knowledge of the underlying physics and
chemistry.
The structure of this body of knowledge created jointly
by universities and industry has turned out to be very
effective for coping with both past and present challenges
to chemical engineering, and I think that it will also be an
essential tool for successfully meeting these challenges in
the future.
4. The scope and depth of the subsystem descriptions
and the methods of designing overall systems have
changed again and again in the past hundred years
and they will also change in the future. In the words of
P.V. Danckwerts in 1966: ‘It will be a great mistake to
think of the content of chemical engineering science as
permanently fixed. It is likely to alter greatly over the
years in response to the changing requirements of
industry and to new scientific discoveries and ideas for
their application’.
On the basis of these changes, I see a need for
further development both in the descriptions of
subsystems and also in the methods and tools for
designing overall systems. The models for describing
reactions, i.e. the coupling of reaction mechanisms and
fluid dynamics are of primary importance in process
engineering. To achieve this goal, investigations in-
cluding the micro level are absolutely necessary. In
1620 K. Wintermantel/Chemical Engineering Science 54 (1999) 1601—1620
product engineering the elucidation of the structure-
property relationships must in many cases start at the
molecular level since changes at this level play a key
role in determining the properties of the end products.
Some examples I have pointed out in my presentation
may help show how we have to proceed in general.
As far as the design and evaluation of overall sys-
tems are concerned, we must develop methods and
tools that make it possible to fully integrate individual
steps to design a complete process and integrate
the individual processes into an overall production
‘Verbund’ in an optimal way. The simulations of over-
all systems have to be problem-oriented and carried
out at those ‘levels of abstraction’, which take eco-
nomic and ecological factors fully into account.
5. The successful further development of the body of
knowledge available to the chemical engineer will in
future only be possible if the needs of industry are
addressed, and to do this chemical engineers in univer-
sities and in companies have their respective roles to
play in extending the scientific foundations necessary
to meet these needs. Key prerequisites for meeting
these goals are both to have chemical engineers who
have received the best possible education and R&D
facilities in universities and industry that fully meet
our research needs.
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