Process engineering

Process engineering is the engineering discipline that deals with all processes in which substances are changed in their nature, properties or composition. In general, it can be said that process engineering is the engineering science of substance transformation. Process engineering is an independent engineering discipline and forms a bridge between the natural sciences of chemistry, physics and biology and the engineering sciences of mechanical and electrical engineering.

In order to be able to work on process engineering tasks in a targeted and efficient manner, many years of in-depth training are necessary. On the one hand, process engineers must be proficient in the application of the disciplines of fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and heat and mass transfer. On the other hand, in-depth knowledge in the areas of measurement and control technology, materials science, and process technology, among others, is necessary to successfully meet the challenges in process engineering.

HINE’s engineers have the relevant expertise and are also able to understand and speak the language of science. Since the findings of natural science form the basis for transferring material conversion processes developed in the laboratory to technical applications, our process engineers work closely with chemists, physicists, pharmacists and biologists.

Process engineering makes the correlation recognized by the natural scientists technically usable. This is done using various processes, which are subdivided into chemical, thermal and mechanical process engineering and bioprocess engineering. The successful transfer from the laboratory to technical application is usually achieved by combining different processes.

We support you in all phases of making your process usable. Be it the transfer of your process from the laboratory to a first pilot plant or the scale-up from the pilot plant to the production plant. But also already in the laboratory we support you with our engineering perspective in the development of your process.

Phenomena that play no or only a minor role in the laboratory can lead to unforeseen problems when scaling up the process to a pilot or production plant. In order to counteract these problems at an early stage, it makes sense to incorporate engineering approaches into the process development already in the laboratory. Through a close exchange between our engineers and your laboratory staff, economic and technical risks can be minimized.

Thanks to HINE’s close links with universities, test processes can be run in specially designed pilot plants to gain initial insights into the behavior of a process. And this is done before high investments have to be made in a pilot plant of one’s own. This significantly reduces the company’s own costs.

HINE engineers develop your technical process on the basis of the knowledge gained, the fundamentals and the requirements defined in a URS. The development is carried out with the help of the tools of process engineering. In addition to energy and material balances, block diagrams and process flow diagrams, the economic issues such as the investment and operating costs of a process are also determined.

We also support you in identifying performance-enhancing optimization measures for existing plants and when problems occur in the process. In existing plants, an increase in energy efficiency can often be achieved through an energetic consideration of the plant’s operation. Possibly certain energetic aspects were not considered during the planning of the plant or later process adaptations took place without energetic consideration of the total process. In this case, we can help you to identify energy-saving opportunities and thus reduce operating costs.

Problems can occur again and again in production. Is the product quality subject to high fluctuations or do certain apparatus or plant components not function as desired? In this case, we support you with our expert engineering analysis to identify the source of the problem and to define suitable measures for process optimization.