Book review: "Process intensification - breakthrough in design, industrial innovation practices, and education", by Jan Harmsen and Maarten Verkerk, DeGruyter (2020)

Process intensification is often defined as the improvement of a process at a molecular, functional, and operational levels to design breakthrough, cost-effective, and integrated chemical technologies. This discipline, that has emerged in its full splendor only in recent years, is considered to be one of the most promising paths for developing circular processes and is attracting great scientific and technological interests. Miniaturized continuous-flow reactors for century-old batch processes, lean operations, and synergistic reaction-separation methods are today essential elements of the industrial practice. Written by Jan Harmsen and Maarten Verkert, Process Intensification - Breakthrough in Design, Industrial Innovation Practices, and Education is a timely contribution to the field and presents a concise, complete, and systematic overview of the sustainability aspects encountered in process intensification. In particular, taking the steps from the discipline theoretical foundations, the book moves to more advanced topics, covering real applications that the authors have seen in their life-long industrial experience. Dr Jan Harmsen is, in fact, a chemical engineer who has held professional positions in process research, process development, reaction engineering, process concept design, and process intensification at European and Asian manufacturing sites of Shell. He was also a professor of Sustainable Chemical Technology at TU Delft and Groningen University. On the other hand, Dr Maarten Verkerk is a material scientist that has worked for more than 15 years at Philips, before returning to academia, teaching innovation, sustainability, philosophy, and ethics at Maastricht University and TU Eindhoven.