Unit Operations and Unit Processes
Chemical engineering is all about chemical reactions and elements, factors, and optimization
of those to understand the mechanics of chemical reactions and producing products. The
combination of both unit operation and process is called the manufacturing process or
chemical process.
Unit Operation
Unit operation is a basic step in a process that involves physical change or chemical
transformation during the process like polymerization separation, evaporation crystallization,
filtration, isomerization, and other reactions.
Example of Unit operation
Example 1 – Distillation of Methylene Di Chloride with water
Explanation – In a process, the separation of Methylene Di Chloride with water using a
liquid-liquid separation technique can be called as a unit operation.|
Explanation – In the above process, only separation is taking place which will be done base
on density difference. This is a physical change and no chemical reaction taking place, hence
this process is considered as unit operation.
Example 2 – Distillation of acetone and water
Explanation – The distillation of acetone from the water is an example of unit operation. In
the distillation process, acetone is separated and that is due to boiling point difference or
volatility of the components. This is also a physical change and no chemical reaction is
carried out. Hence distillation is a unit operation.
Classification of Unit Operation
Now we had seen the definition of unit operation and hereby learned what is unit operation.
There are 4 classification of unit operation, classification of unit operation are listed below.
1. Material handling, transportation / Fluid flow process
Pumping
Compression
fluidization
2. Mechanical unit operations
Size reduction
Size enlargement
Mixing, agitation, blending, etc
3. Mass transfer Operations
Evaporation
Distillation
Absorption
Extraction
leaching.
4. Heat transfer operations
conduction
convection
radiation
Unit Process
The unit process is a process in which chemical changes take place to the material present in
the reaction and result in the chemical reaction is known as the Unit process. This basically
consists of a reaction between two or more chemical which results in another chemical can
also be defined as unit process. Sulphonation, nitration, oxidation, halogenation, and many
more.
Example of Unit process
Example 1 – Electrolysis of sodium chloride solution
As I currently work in a Chlor Alkali industry where we do electrolysis of sodium chlorine
solution, we will take this as an example of Unit process.
Explanation – Here, electrolysis of Nacl is being done and the concentration of sodium
chloride is taken as 305 (around) GPL (gram per liter) concentration is feed to electrolysis
cell in which electricity is passed and sodium hydroxide is produced. In this reaction,
decomposition reaction takes place hence, this is a unit operation. If you are interested, you
can read Fundamentals of Electrolysis
Example 2 – Production of Hydrogen
Hydrogen is produced using very popular method i.e. Steam-methane reforming reaction.
In this method, methane reacts with steam at a pressure under 3–25 bar pressure in the
presence of a Nickel catalyst at about 750 to produce hydrogen.
In this Steam-methane reforming reaction, chemical reaction under pressure and
temperature is being conducted to react Methane with steam and generate Hydrogen. As here
the reaction is begin conducted, this process comes under unit process.
Difference between unit operation and unit process
Unit Operation Unit Process
Process in which only physical changes
Process in which chemical changes takes
and not chemical changes takes place are
place are considered as unit process.
known as a unit operation.
Mixing, blending, crushing distillation, etc Bromination, halogenation, sulphonation,
are considered as unit operations etc are called unit process
