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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Scale-Up and Process Development

Debottlenecking

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In chemical engineering, debottlenecking means: Increasing a plant's capacity by finding and removing the equipment limits that stop it from producing more, instead of building a completely new unit.

In Turkish: darboğaz giderme, kapasite artırma

How it is used

Common in mature plants. Engineers run test runs, identify the bottleneck (a pump, column, exchanger or compressor), study options and estimate cost. The verb is 'debottleneck': 'we debottlenecked the unit by 15%'.

Example sentences

  1. The debottlenecking study showed that the overhead condenser is the first limit.

  2. A low-cost debottlenecking project could add 8% capacity with just a new pump impeller.

Common collocations

  • debottlenecking study
  • debottlenecking project
  • identify the bottleneck
  • capacity increase
  • throughputThe amount of material that a unit or plant processes in a given time, for example tonnes of feed per day.
  • 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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