Industrial Chemistry - Unit Operations, Quality Systems and Philippine Regulation
What the exam tests
Industrial Chemistry applies unit operations, material and energy balances, process control, quality systems and Philippine regulatory requirements to plant-scale manufacturing.
Core rules
- Balances: total mass in = total mass out at steady state; component balances give product splits; energy balances around heat exchangers use Q = m Cp ΔT and LMTD for sizing.
- Distillation: Raoult's law, relative volatility α = (yA/xA)/(yB/xB), McCabe–Thiele for stages and reflux; Fenske for minimum stages.
- Quality systems: GMP, ISO/IEC 17025 for testing laboratories, validated methods, chain of custody, and statistical process control charts.
- Philippine law you must know: RA 10657 (Chemistry Profession Act) governs licensure, the PRC registry and the chemist's scope of practice; RA 6969 covers toxic substances and hazardous wastes; RA 8749 (Clean Air Act) and RA 9275 (Clean Water Act) set effluent and emission limits; DOLE Occupational Safety and Health Standards govern workplace exposure.
- Safety: SDS review, NFPA 704 diamond, incompatible storage, and waste segregation before disposal.
Worked example
A column processes 1000 kg/h of a 40 % A feed into a distillate of 95 % A and bottoms of 5 % A. Overall: D + B = 1000. Component: 0.95D + 0.05B = 400. Substituting B = 1000 − D: 0.95D + 50 − 0.05D = 400 → 0.90D = 350 → D = 388.9 kg/h, B = 611.1 kg/h. Recovery of A = (0.95 × 388.9)/400 = 92.4 %.
Traps
Mixing mass and mole fractions; forgetting to close the energy balance; confusing relative volatility with a simple ratio of vapour pressures; citing the wrong statute for hazardous waste; treating a specification as a target rather than a limit.