Over half of the products of the chemical and process industries are sold in a particulate form. The range of such products is vast: from agrochemicals to pigments, from detergents to foods, from plastics to pharmaceuticals. However, surveys of the performance of processes designed to produce particulate products have consistently shown inadequate design and poor reliability.
Particle technology' is a new subject facing new challenges. Chemical and process engineering is becoming less concerned with the design of plants to produce generic simple chemicals (which are often single phase...