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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Scale-Up and Process Development

Bench scale

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In chemical engineering, bench scale means: The smallest stage of process development, using laboratory equipment of a few milliliters to a few liters to test chemistry and collect first data.

In Turkish: laboratuvar ölçeği, tezgah üstü ölçek

How it is used

Used in R&D and scale-up planning, usually in the order bench scale, pilot scale, then commercial or full scale. Often used as an adjective with a hyphen: 'bench-scale tests', 'a bench-scale reactor'.

Example sentences

  1. Bench-scale tests showed good selectivity, but we still need pilot data on heat removal.

  2. At bench scale the filtration took minutes; in the plant it takes six hours.

Common collocations

  • bench-scale tests
  • bench-scale reactor
  • from bench scale to pilot scale
  • lab scale
  • pilot plantA small version of a planned production plant, between laboratory and full scale, used to test the process, collect design data and make sample product.
  • scale upTo take a process that works in the lab or a pilot plant and design it to run at a much larger, commercial size.
  • design basisThe agreed set of data and assumptions that a plant design is based on, such as capacity, feed and product specifications, site conditions and design margins.
  • process simulationUsing software to build a computer model of a process, with its equipment, streams and thermodynamics, in order to calculate balances, size equipment and test changes.

More terms: Scale-Up and Process Development

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