Design Strategy

WAD:CE aims to produce cost-effective designs in an increasingly competitive market. To do this, the focus is on compact plant which incorporate a high level of energy efficiency and minimise production of wastes. Depending on technical feasibility and cost effectiveness, we weigh up the benefits of plant which are designed to be run continuously rather than batchwise. That is to say: raw materials enter, and likewise products emerge as continuous streams. The benefits of continuous plant are several: (i) extensive use of heat recovery minimising utility costs, (ii) large vessels and large inventories normally required for batch operations are often avoided (iii) plant tend to be more compact and operate with lower labour costs. Inherent risks can be lowered also. By contrast batch plant are usually simpler to design, contain less sophisticated control. Because of this they have tended to be more established in the smaller process industries. With the prevalence of high-performence control technology these days, the benefits of continuous plant are worth examining.

Process Conceptual Design

Bringing new ideas from the Òresearch bench" to pilot plant requires understanding of the process from the research chemist's point of view. Creating conceptual process designs is a particular strength of WAD:CE.

Troubleshooting and Optimisation

As well as designing and building plant WAD:CE offer expert services in troubleshooting and optimising existing plant. One of our specialities is tuning of process control systems and optimising operation of the plant generally. Plant may be designed with state-of-the-art control systems in place but do not necessarily have these systems working at their peak.