For this project, you will incorporate virtual companies. Each company will have the following organizational structure. Each company will do following activities:
- Management: CEO will oversee each step described below.
- Market analysis: Identify high-value chemicals that can be made in India. You will screen at least 3 such chemicals and finalise one chemical. They would be from fine or specialty chemicals. These chemicals will not be from bulk chemicals. It will not be a consumer product. Some examples include intermediates used in agro, pharma, paint, surfactant, perfume, beauty products etc. When finalising you will consider profitability, availability of raw materials, safety. (Some useful resources include reports available on chemical industry from https://chemicals.gov.in, https://www.ibef.org/, http://cpmaindia.com, KPMG etc.). Get material input cost and product cost from Internet (e.g. Zauba which tracks import and export data)
- R&D - chemical synthesis: R&D team will come up with chemical reactions and separation steps from lab-scale research available on internet. R&D team will give chemicals required, purity and yield of the product that can be achieved. Supporting patents & research articles will be collected. (Scifinder; register an account using IITK address, Google Scholar/Patents)
- Technical services: Takes inputs from the R&D team, market analysis team, and management. Design team will develop a block diagram for scaled-up process, perform material balance, identify unit operations and operating conditions. Capacity of the plant would be 1000 kg/day of product. Technical services team will also evaluate the approximate capital cost (you can use this reference. http://www.matche.com/equipcost/Default.html).
- Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS): Based on the inputs from technical services team, EHS team will identify safety concerns, estimate the amount of waste generation & propose a plan to monitor and treat them to environmentally benign compounds for disposal.