| Abstract: | Process System Engineering. Thoughts on the need for and curriculum of an academic course of instruction . The raw material, energy, and environmental situation, international competition, and the decline in product innovation are increasingly casting doubts on conventional processes and their realization. Hence, in the future-training of chemical engineers a reasonable amount of time should be devoted to the study of system facets, i. e. to thinking and acting in complex systems of interrelationships. Under the general leading ?Process System Engineering”? those activities are discussed which are relevant to the design and planning of chemical engineering systems (process synthesis) and the mathematical analysis of a given system (process analysis). Process synthesis is the creative facet of project planning involving several methodologies. Process analysis embraces steady-state and non-steady state mass- and energy-balancing and the mathematical evaluation of various process alternatives on the basis of operating costs and investment as well as the simulation of operational behaviour and optimization of process configurations using mathematical models. The following article discusses a selection of points which should play an important part in the teaching of process synthesis and process analysis and considers some examples by way of illustration. |
