Biology is a rich source of great ideas that can inspire us to find successful ways to solve the challenging problems in engineering practices including those in the chemical industry. Bio-inspired chemical engineering (BioChE) may be recognized as a significant branch of chemical engineering. It may consist of, but not limited to, the following three aspects: 1) Chemical engineering principles and unit operations in biological systems; 2) Process engineering principles for producing existing or developing new chemical products through living ‘devices'; and 3) Chemical engineering processes and equipment that are designed and constructed through mimicking (does not have to reproduce one hundred percent) the biological systems including their physical-chemical and mechanical structures to deliver uniquely beneficial performances. This may also include the bio-inspired sensors for process monitoring. In this paper, the above aspects are defined and discussed which establishes the scope of BioChE.

Gas fluidization has an ability to turn static particles to fluid-like dense flow, which allows greatly improved heat transfer among porous powders and highly efficient solid processing to become reality. As the rising star of current scientific research, some nanoparticles can also be fluidized in the form of agglomerates, with sizes ranging from tens to hundreds of microns. Herein, we have reviewed the recent progress on nanomaterial agglomeration and their fluidization behavior, the assisted techniques to enhance the fluidization of nanomaterials, including some mechanical measures, external fields and improved gas injections, as well as their effects on solid fluidization and mixing behaviors. Most of these techniques are effective in breaking large agglomerates and promoting particulate fluidization, meanwhile, the solid mixing is intensified under assisted fluidization. The applications of nanofluidization in nanostructured material production and sustainable chemical industry are further presented. In summary, the fluidization science of multidimensional, multicomponent and multifunctional particles, theirmulti-phase characterization, and the guideline of fluidized bed coupled process are prerequisites for the sustainable development of fluidized bed based materials, energy and chemical industry.

Forward osmosis (FO), as one of the emerging desalination technologies, has the potential to produce freshwater from a variety of water sources by utilizing the osmotic pressure gradient across a semi-permeable membrane. Drawsolution, as an essential component of any FO process, can extract watermolecules fromseawater orwastewater. An ideal draw solution should meet three essential requirements, namely high osmotic pressure, low reverse flux, and facile regeneration mechanism. The selection of proper draw solutes is especially critical for an energy-efficient FO process since the energy consumption mostly arises from the separation or regeneration of the draw solution. Recently, we developed a few multi-functional FO draw solutes, mainly aiming to enhance the FO water flux and to explore facile re-concentration methods. This review summarizes these draw solutes, including Na⁺-functionalized carbon quantum dots, thermoresponsive copolymers, hydrophilic magnetic nanoparticles, and thermoresponsive magnetic nanoparticles.

Biomacromolecules including protein and nucleic acids are considered as promising chiral selectors in the fields of enantioselective separation, owing to their inherent chirality, polymorphous structures, stable physicochemical properties, good biocompatibility as well as susceptible modification and regulation. In this review, firstly, enantioselective recognition mechanismof proteins and nucleic acids toward different enantiomers is discussed, as well as their potential applications on the chiral separation of racemic compounds. Secondly, preparative enantioseparation adopting biomolecule-modified hybrid materials including porous microspheres, magnetic nanoparticles and affinity membranes, are introduced respectively. Finally, novel chiroptical materials constructed on the basis of chiral induction, transfer, amplification and transcription, are recognized as promising candidates in future applications.

This review focuses on the application of process engineering in electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices innovation. For polymer electrolyte based devices, it highlights that a strategic simple switch fromproton exchange membranes (PEMs) to hydroxide exchange membranes (HEMs) may lead to a new-generation of affordable electrochemical energy devices including fuel cells, electrolyzers, and solar hydrogen generators. For lithium-ion batteries, a series of advancements in design and chemistry are required for electric vehicle and energy storage applications. Manufacturing process development and optimization of the LiFePO₄/C cathodematerials and several emerging novel anode materials are also discussed using the authors' work as examples. Design and manufacturing process of lithium-ion battery electrodes are introduced in detail, and modeling and optimization of large-scale lithium-ion batteries are also presented. Electrochemical energy materials and device innovations can be further prompted by better understanding of the fundamental transport phenomena involved in unit operations.

For the ever-growing demand of advanced lithium-ion batteries, it is highly desirable to grow self-supported micro-/nanostructured arrays onmetal substrates as electrodes directly. The in-situ growth of electrode materials on the conducting substrates greatly simplifies the electrode fabrication process without using any binders or conductive additives. Moreover, the well-ordered arrays closely connected to the current collectors can provide direct electron transport pathways and enhanced accommodation of strains arisen from lithium ion lithiation/delithiation. This article summarizes our recent work on design and construction of lithium-ion battery electrodes on metal substrates. An aqueous solution-based process and a microemulsion-mediated process have been respectively presented to control the kinetic and thermodynamic processes for the micro-/nanostructured array growth on metal substrates, with particular attention to CuO nanorod arrays and microcog arrays successfully prepared on Cu foil substrates. They can be directly used as binder-free electrodes to build advanced lithium-ion batteries with high energy, high safety and high stability.

In the last several decades, circulating fluidized bed reactors have been studied in many aspects including hydrodynamics, heat and mass transfer and gas-solid two phase contacting. However, despite the abundance of review papers on hydrodynamics, there is no summary paper on gas-solid contact efficiency to date, especially on high density circulating fluidized beds (CFBs). This paper gives an introduction to, and a review of the measurement of contact efficiency in circulating fluidized bed riser. Firstly, the popular testing method of contact efficiency including the method of heating transfer experiment and hot model reaction are discussed, then previous published papers are reviewed based on the discussed methods. Some key results of the experimental work are described and discussed. Gas-solid contact efficiency is affected by the operating conditions as well as the particle size distribution. The result of the contact efficiency shows that the CFB riser is far away froman ideal plug flowreactor due to the characteristics of hydrodynamics in the riser. Lacunae in the available literature have been delineated and recommendations have been made for further work.

The asymmetric breakups of a droplet in an axisymmetric cross-like microfluidic device are investigated by using a three-dimensional volume of fluid (VOF) multiphase numerical model. Two kinds of asymmetries (droplet location deviation from the symmetric geometry center and different flow rates at two symmetric outlets) generate asymmetric flow fields near the droplet, which results in the asymmetric breakup of the latter. Four typical breakup regimes (no breakup, one-side breakup, retraction breakup and direct breakup) have been observed. Two regime maps are plotted to describe the transition from one regime to another for the two types of different asymmetries, respectively. A power lawmodel, which is based on the three critical factors (the capillary number, the asymmetry of flow fields and the initial volume ratio), is employed to predict the volume ratio of the two unequal daughter droplets generated in the direct breakup. The influences of capillary numbers and the asymmetries have been studied systematically in this paper. The larger the asymmetry is, the bigger the oneside breakup zone is. The larger the capillary number is, the more possible the breakup is in the direct breakup zone. When the radius of the initial droplet is 20 μm, the critical capillary numbers are 0.122, 0.128, 0.145, 0.165, 0.192 and 0.226 for flow asymmetry factor A_S = 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5, respectively, in the flow systemwhose asymmetry is generated by location deviations. In the flowsystemwhose asymmetry is generated by two different flow rates at two outlets, the critical capillary numbers are 0.121, 0.133, 0.145, 0.156 and 0.167 for A_S = 1/21, 3/23, 1/5, 7/27 and 9/29, respectively.

Traffic-related pollutants adversely affect air quality, especially in regions near major roadways. The vehicleinduced turbulence (VIT) is a significant factor that controls the initial dilution, dispersion, and ultimately the chemical and physical fate of pollutants by altering the conditions in the microenvironment. This study used a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT to model the vehicle-induced turbulence (VIT) generated on roadways, with a focus on impact of vehicle-vehicle interactions, traffic density and vehicle composition on turbulent kinetic energy (TKE). We show, for the first time, that the overall TKE from multiple vehicles traveling in series can be estimated by superimposing the TKE of each vehicle, without considering the distance between themwhile the distance is greater than one vehicle length. This finding is particularly significant since it enables a new approach to VIT simulations where the overall TKE is calculated as a function of number of vehicles. We found that the interactions between vehicles traveling next to each other in adjacent lanes are insignificant, regardless the directions of the traffic flow. Consequently, simulations of different traffic scenarios can be substantially simplified by treating two-way traffic as one-way traffic, with less than 5% difference in the overall volume-averaged TKE. We also developed equations that allow the estimation of the overall volume-averaged TKE as a function of the number and the type of vehicles.

In order to clarify the extraction process with saponified extractant, the solvent extraction experiments of rare earth elements (REEs), lanthanum and cerium, by using partly saponified 2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid mono-2-ethylhexyl ester (EHEHPA, HL) from hydrochloric acidic solutions have been performed. The concentration of initial aqueous rare earth ion was in a range of 0.0010-0.1000 mol·L^-1; EHEHPA in a range of 0.2877-0.8631 mol·L^-1 with saponification rate of 0.3 (mole fraction), and the initial aqueous pH in a range of 1.00-4.00. Firstly, the extracted species were determined by the saturation extraction capacity method. Secondly, according to the equilibrium aqueous pH values, the extraction processes were divided into three different categories: extraction with saponified EHEHPA, extraction with un-saponified EHEHPA, and hydrolysis process. Finally, for the first two processes, in order to predict the distribution ratio, two semi-empirical calculation models were developed with. The calculation results are in good agreement well with the experimental data.

As a potential solution to the crises of energy and resources, forward osmosis (FO) has been limited by the development of draw agents. An ideal draw agent should be able to generate high osmotic pressure and can be easily recovered. In this study, a thermo-sensitive polyelectrolyte of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (PNA) is developed as an efficient drawagent, and two easy and simple methods are proposed to effectively recover the polyelectrolytes. After adjusting the pH value of polyelectrolyte solutions to around 6.0, the polyelectrolyte can generate relatively high osmotic pressure, and induce average water fluxes of 2.09 and 2.95 L·m^-2·h^-1 during 12 h FO processes when the polyelectrolyte concentrations are 0.20 and 0.38 g·ml^-1 respectively. After acidifying and heating to 70 ℃, the PNA-10 polyelectrolyte can aggregate together because of hydrophobic association and separate from water, so it can be easily recovered by either simple centrifugation or gravitational sedimentation. The recovery ratios of PNA-10 polyelectrolyte in both methods are as high as 89%, and the recovered polyelectrolytes can be reused with almost the same FO performance as fresh ones. The results in this study provide valuable guidance for designing efficient and easily recoverable draw agents for FO processes.

The removal of copper ions from wastewater by ion exchange has been studied using an iminodiacetate resin. The capacity of the resin for the copper ions has been determined to be 2.30 mmol·g^-1 by measuring the equilibrium isotherm at 25 ℃ and initial pH value of 3.5 where the final equilibrium pH value is 5. An analysis of equilibrium isotherm models showed that the best fit model was the Langmuir-Freundlich. The kinetics of the ion exchange process have been investigated and four kinetic models have been tested namely: Ritchie model, pseudo-second order model, pseudo-first order model and the Elovich model. The pseudo-second order model provides the best fit to the kinetic data.

The temporal and spatial growth behaviour of protein crystals, subject to different cooling strategies in protein crystallisation was investigated. Although the impact of temperature and cooling rate on crystal growth of small moleculeswaswell documented, much less has been reported on their impact on the crystallisation of proteins. In this paper, an experimental set-up is configured to carry out such a study which involves an automatic temperature controlled hot-stage crystalliser fittedwith a real-time imaging system. Linbro parallel crystallisation experiments (24-well plate)were also conducted to find the suitable initial conditions to be used in the hot-stage crystallisation experiments, including the initial concentration of HEWlysozyme solutions, precipitate concentration and pH value. It was observed that fast cooling rates at the early stage led to precipitates while slow cooling rates produced crystal nuclei, and very slowcooling rates,much smaller than for smallmolecules are critical to the growth of the nuclei and the crystals to a desired shape. The interesting results provide valuable insight aswell as experimental proof of the feasibility and effectiveness of cooling as a means for achieving controlled protein crystallisation, compared with the evaporation approach which was widely used to grow single large crystals for X-ray diffraction study. Since cooling rate control can be easily achieved and has good repeatability, it suggests that large-scale production of protein crystals can be effectively achieved by manipulating cooling rates.

A two-stage blade-packing rotating packed bed (TSBP-RPB) was designed and developed for the intensification of continuous distillation. The mass transfer parameters of the TSBP-RPBwere investigated using a chemisorption system. Continuous distillation experiments were conducted in the TSBP-RPB by the methanol-water binary system. Experimental results showed that values of the effective interfacial area and liquid-side mass transfer coefficient of the TSBP-RPB were 93-337 m²·m^-3 and 0.05-0.19 cm·s^-1, respectively. The height of equivalent theoretical plate (HETP) of the TSBP-RPB ranged from 1.9 to 10 cm. Moreover, the TSBP-RPB is easy to be manufactured, which shows great potential for the application of continuous distillation.

Freeze-drying of the initially porous frozen material with pre-built pores from liquid material was found experimentally to save drying time by over 30% with an initial saturation being 0.28 compared with the conventional operationwith the initial saturation being 1, usingmannitol as the solidmaterial. In order to understand themass and heat transfer phenomena of this novel process, a two-dimensional mathematical model of coupled mass and heat transfer was derived with reference to the cylindrical coordinate system. Three adsorption-desorption equilibrium relationships between the vapour pressure and saturation value namely, power-law, Redhead's style and Kelvin's style equation, were tested. Kelvin's style in exponential form of adsorption equilibrium relation gave an excellent agreement between the model prediction and experimental measurement when the equation parameter, γ, of 5000 was applied. Analyses of temperature and ice saturation profiles show that additional heat needs to be supplied to increase the sample temperature in order to promote the desorption process. Simulation also shows that there is a threshold initial porosity after which the drying time decreased with the increase in the initial porosity. Enhanced freeze-drying is expected to be achieved by simultaneously enhancing mass and heat transfer of the process.

An efficient conversion of biomass-derived ethyl lactate to 1,2-propanediol (1,2-PDO) over CuO was investigated. Among the catalysts we tested, CuO, Cu₂O and Co showed excellent catalytic activity for the conversion of ethyl lactate to 1,2-PDO in water, and CuO was more active and gave the best result. The 1,2-PDO yield of 93.6% was achieved when Zn acted as a reductant. The results indicated that in situ formed hydrogen by the oxidation of Zn in water is more effective than gaseous hydrogen, which failed to produce the 1,2-PDO from ethyl lactate. From a practical point of view, the present method may provide a useful route for the production of 1,2-PDO from ethyl lactate.

Dissociation of methyl nitrite is the first step during CO catalytic coupling to dimethyl oxalate followed by hydrogenation to ethyl glycol in a typical coal to liquid process. In this work, the first-principle calculations based on density functional theory were performed to explore the reaction mechanism for the non-catalytic dissociation of methyl nitrite in the gas phase and the catalytic dissociation of methyl nitrite on Pd(111) surface since palladium supported on alpha-alumina is the most effective catalyst for the coupling. For the non-catalytic case, the calculated results show that the CH₃O-NO bond will break with a bond energy of 1.91 eV, and the produced CH₃O radicals easily decompose to formaldehyde, while the further dissociation of formaldehyde in the gas phase is difficult due to the strong C-H bond. On the other hand, the catalytic dissociation of methyl nitrite on Pd(111) to the adsorbed CH₃O andNOtakes place with a small energy barrier of 0.03 eV. The calculated activation energies along the proposed reaction pathways indicate that (i) at lowcoverage, a successive dehydrogenation of the adsorbed CH₃O to CO and H is favored while (ii) at high coverage, hydrogenation of CH₃O to methanol and carbonylation of CH₃O to methyl formate are more preferred. On the basis of the proposed reaction mechanism, two meaningfulways are proposed to suppress the dissociation of methyl nitrate during the CO catalytic coupling to dimethyl oxalate.

TiO₂ modified Al₂O₃ binary oxide was prepared by a wet-impregnation method and used as the support for ruthenium catalyst. The catalytic performance of Ru/TiO₂-Al₂O₃ catalyst in CO₂ methanation reaction was investigated. Compared with Ru/Al₂O₃ catalyst, the Ru/TiO₂-Al₂O₃ catalytic system exhibited a much higher activity in CO₂ methanation reaction. The reaction rate over Ru/TiO₂-Al₂O₃ was 0.59 mol CO₂·(g Ru)^-1·h^-1, 3.1 times higher than that on Ru/Al₂O₃ [0.19 mol CO₂·(g Ru)^-1·h^-1]. The effect of TiO₂ content and TiO₂-Al₂O₃ calcination temperature on catalytic performance was addressed. The corresponding structures of each catalyst were characterized by means of H2-TPR, XRD, and TEM. Results indicated that the averaged particle size of the Ru on TiO₂-Al₂O₃ support is 2.8 nm, smaller than that on Al₂O₃ support of 4.3 nm. Therefore, we conclude that the improved activity over Ru/TiO₂-Al₂O₃ catalyst is originated from the smaller particle size of ruthenium resulting from a strong interaction between Ru and the rutile-TiO₂ support, which hindered the aggregation of Ru nanoparticles.

Based on the principle of biomimetic catalysis, β-cyclodextrin was applied to the acetalation reaction as a facile and efficient catalyst, and the synthesis was environmentally friendly with atomic economy. The influencing factors of the acetalation reaction e.g. the reaction time, the volume of water-carrying agent, the molar ratio of catalyst to benzaldehyde and the molar ratio of glycol to benzaldehyde had been studied. The yield of benzaldehyde glycol acetal would reach amaximum of 81.3% under the conditions approached. Six of other acetals were also synthesized. Moreover, a plausible reaction mechanism for the formation of acetal had been proposed.

Three hydrophobic charge-induction adsorbents with functional ligands of 4-mercapto-ethyl-pyridine, 2-mercapto-methyl-imidazole or 2-mercapto-benzimidazole were evaluated in the purification of porcine immunoglobulin from porcine blood. Adsorption isothermswere studied under different pH conditions. The adsorbent with 2-mercapto-methyl-imidazole as the ligand showed reasonable adsorption capacity (43.60 mg·g^-1 gel) with great selectivity and it also showed the best elution performance in chromatographic studies. A multi-pH step elution process was proposed for the 2-mercapto-methyl-imidazole adsorbent, and the results showed that high immunoglobulin purity (94.3%) and a yield of 9.8 mg·(ml plasma)^-1 could be achieved under the optimal condition of loading (pH 5.0)-pre-elution (pH 7.0)-elution (pH 3.8). Moreover, molecular simulation was employed to help in analyzing the binding mechanism between the ligands and immunoglobulin, and the results showed that both 2-mercapto-benzimidazole and 2-mercapto-methyl-imidazole ligands were docked on the same pocket (around TYR319 and LEU309) of the Fc fragment of immunoglobulin, with 2-mercaptobenzimidazole showing stronger binding interactions.

The effects of different carbon sources (sugars) on the production and molecular properties of exopolysaccharides (EPS) were evaluated in the mycelial liquid culture of a medicinal fungus Cordyceps sinensis Cs-HK1. Galactose or mannosewas used (at 5 g·L^-1) as a secondary carbon sourcewithglucose (35g·L^-1) at themass ratioof1:7.Mannose was consumed notably since the first day of culture, but galactose was not even after glucose was exhausted. The volumetric yield of EPS in culture was increased slightly with the addition of galactose and decreased withmannose. The monosaccharide composition of EPS was also different, e.g., on day 8, the glucose contents of EPS were 76% with the addition of mannose, 59% with galactose, comparedwith 62% with glucose only. Themolecular weight distribution of EPS was also affected by the secondary carbon source, being generally lower compared with that with glucose only. The results suggested that the addition of galactose improved the total yield of EPS in culture while mannose can improve the yield of glucan constituent of EPS.

In this study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to investigate and compare the impact of bioreactor parameters (such as its geometry, medium flow-rate, scaffold configuration) on the local transport phenomena and, hence, their impact on human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) expansion. The geometric characteristics of the TissueFlex® (Zyoxel Limited, Oxford, UK) microbioreactor were considered to set up a virtual bioreactor containing alginate (in both slab and bead configuration) scaffolds. The bioreactor and scaffolds were seeded with cells that were modelled as glucose consuming entities. The widely used glucose medium, Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM), supplied at two inlet flow rates of 25 and 100 μl·h^-1, was modelled as the fluid phase inside the bioreactors. The investigation, based on applying dimensional analysis to this problem, as well as on detailed three-dimensional transient CFD results, revealed that the default bioreactor design and boundary conditions led to internal and external glucose transport, as well as shear stresses, that are conducive to hMSC growth and expansion. Furthermore, results indicated that the ‘top-inout’ design (as opposed to its symmetric counterpart) led to higher shear stress for the same media inlet rate (25 μl·h^-1), a feature that can be easily exploited to induce shear-dependent differentiation. These findings further confirm the suitability of CFD as a robust design tool.

Novel cationic cotton fabricswere prepared by an efficient and simple one-step pad-dry-bake pretreatment processwith betaine as cationic reagent. Ester bonds formed between cotton fibers and betaine hydrochloride were proved by Fourier transformed infrared attenuated total reflection (FTIR-ATR) spectra. Moreover, the properties of the cationic fabrics, including X-ray Diffraction (XRD), tensile strength and whiteness and yellowness index, were investigated in comparison with that of the untreated ones. The cationic fabrics were applied in salt-free dyeing of C.I. Reactive Red 195, C.I. Reactive Yellow 145 and C.I. Reactive Blue 19. Different dye fixation processes were applied and compared for untreated and cationic cotton. Dye fixation and color fastness properties of the dyeswere tested, and the results presented that dye fixation on the cationic fabrics in the absence of saltwas improved with satisfactory light fastness property and applicable wash and rub fastnesses.

Microcellular injection molding of neat isotactic polypropylene (iPP) and isotactic polypropylene/nano-calcium carbonate composites (iPP/nano-CaCO₃H) was performed using supercritical carbon dioxide as the physical blowing agent. The influences of filler content and operating conditions on microstructure morphology of iPP and iPP/nano-CaCO₃H microcellular samples were studied systematically. The results showed the bubble size of the microcellular samples could be effectively decreased while the cell density increased for iPP/nano-CaCO₃H composites, especially at high CO₂ concentration and back pressure, low mold temperature and injection speed, and high filler content. Then Moldex 3D was applied to simulate the microcellular injection molding process, with the application of the measured ScCO₂ solubility and diffusion data for iPP and iPP/nano-CaCO₃H composites respectively. For neat iPP, the simulated bubble size and density distribution in the center section of tensile bars showed a good agreement with the experimental values. However, for iPP/nano-CaCO₃H composites, the correction factor for nucleation activation energy F and the pre-exponential factor of nucleation rate f0 were obtained by nonlinear regression on the experimental bubble size and density distribution. The parameters F and f0 can be used to predict the microcellular injection molding process for iPP/nano-CaCO₃H composites by Moldex 3D.

A novel mesoporous silica coated carbon composite (denoted SEG) with hierarchical pore structure has been successfully prepared in an aqueous solution that contains triblock copolymer template, aluminum chloride, siliceous source and expanded graphite. Textural property and morphology of the SEG composite were characterized by the combination of X-ray diffraction, N₂ adsorption-desorption, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared measurements. Results show that mesoporous silica is steadily and uniformly grown on the surface of the graphite slices and the thickness of the silica layer can be finely tuned according to the silica/C molar ratio in the initial reaction solution. This newly synthesized SEG composite shows greatly increased adsorption capacity to methylene blue than the pristine expanded graphite in the batch tests. Both Langmuir and Frendlich models were further used to evaluate the adsorption isotherms of methylene blue over expanded graphite and SEG samples with different silica contents. Finally, pseudosecond-order model was used to describe the kinetics of methylene blue over expanded graphite and the silica-carbon composites.

Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are non-volatile organic salts. They may replace conventional coalescing agents in latex coating thus reducing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission as well as improving performance of latex coating products such as better thermal stability, conductivity, and antifouling property. The formation of latex coating containing RTILs can be achieved by encapsulation of RTILs inside particles via miniemulsion polymerization. In this study, the role of RTILs and its concentration on stability of miniemulsion during storage and polymerization were investigated. It has been found that, above a critical concentration (10 wt%), adding more RTILs to oil phase may weaken miniemulsion stability during storage aswell as polymerization. Such observations were consistent with the zeta potential measurement for miniemulsions prepared at the similar conditions. The results obtained here would be a useful guideline for the development of new waterborne coating products with desirable functions and particle sizes.

An approach for the economic analysis of chemical product design is proposed. It takes into account of customers' preference on product quality and economic considerations such as pricing, profit, market share, capital investment, and operating cost. The activities needed to support business decision making-identifying product quality, estimating product cost, calculating financial metrics, and performing make-buy analysis-are discussed. The design of a Ganoderma lucidum dietary supplement, a traditional Chinesemedicinal (TCM) product, is used to illustrate all the activities in this approach.