Industrial Process Scale-up

Chapter 5

Demonstration Stage

5.1 Rationale Demonstration Scale Process

A demonstration scale is the first of its kind small scale commercial process. The purpose is to reduce the technical and business risks of the new process. Typically its capacity is 1% of the full scale process and the capital expenditure is 10% of the full scale. So if it fails partly or totally, maximally only 10% of the capital investment is lost.

There is another reason for having a demonstration scale process. It is likely that a first of its kind process design will have some redundancy introduced by the process designer to make sure that the process will work and reach its design capacity. One can do this by oversizing equipment or even adding equipment that might ...