Custom processing in the UK

Chemical processing in the UK

A chemical process is a method intended to be used in manufacturing or on an industrial scale to change the composition of chemical(s) or material(s), usually using technology, software or processing similar or related to that used in chemical plants or the chemical industry.

Although this type of chemical process may sometimes involve only one step, often multiple steps, referred to as unit operations, are involved. In a plant, each of the unit operations commonly occur in individual vessels or sections of the plant called units. Often, one or more chemical reactions are involved, but other ways of changing chemical (or material) composition may be used, such as mixing or separation processes.

The process steps may be sequential in time or sequential in space along a stream of flowing or moving material. For a given amount of a feed (input) material or product (output) material, an expected amount of material can be determined at key steps in the process from empirical data and material balance calculations. These amounts can be scaled up or down to suit the desired capacity or operation of a particular chemical plant built for such a process. More than one chemical plant may use the same chemical process, each plant perhaps at differently scaled capacities.