Ask Me Help Desk - Analysing the compounds and calculating %yield and %purity

1. Explain why it is improtant for industrial chemical plants to conduct regular checks on yield and purity of desired product?

Max yield is for minimum loss, and max purity is for max 'quality'. Of course, for competition, a company will have to maximise the quality of the products while minimising the losses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unknown008

Max yield is for minimum loss, and max purity is for max 'quality'. Of course, for competition, a company will have to maximise the quality of the products while minimising the losses.

Thank you are there any more other reasons to this

There may be, depending on what are the products. Say for example silicon. The purity of silicon is very important in the electronic industry. The purity of the silicon chip will determine the conductivity of that silicon. Too much conductivity is bad, as too low conductivity is.

Say now gold. You would like to buy a gold ring at the true price and get a ring made of pure gold, not with lots of impurities.

So to ensure such levels of purity, companies do have to check in regularly.

Yield and purity aren't the same monsters.

Yield is tied directly to dollars. You buy materials, chemicals, and you want to get the most out of the reaction and/or process that you can get. Finding ways to keep yields high means you get more to sell for the money you spent buying materials and making product.

Purity is also tied to money, but its more complicated.

For ex... I might have I high yield reaction that has some side products. Now... if those side products are easily removed or don't harm the use of the desired product, then no big deal. But if a side product or leftover reactant severely reduced the usefulness of the end product, then you must find a way to remove it or at least diminish its concentration. Some by products are easily removed or have little effect on the use of the desired compound... and some can dramatically affect the desired products usefulness. It's a case by case analysis.

Some industries have standards that must be met. If your products doesn't meet industry/customer standards then you have to spend time and money getting it there. That might mean more processing or refining. More work. More money spent on workers to make the product meet specs. I formulated a product once that only worked about half the time on the manufacturing floor... meaning half the time it wouldn't pass customer specs. It sucked.

That said... we still made it. The customer wanted it, and we took it as a loss leader... a product we'd make as sell at a loss to keep their other business, which was worth so much more money. So... I spent over 18 months on a product that had decent yield, but poor "purity" much of the time... and that meant we had to do a lot of failed runs to make enough product to keep the customer happy.

Most manufacturing industries have to deal with "failed" runs. It happens. You just want to try to minimize how often, especially with materials that are expensive.

So...

Most businesses want to stay in business, right? They want to be there tomorrow. Probably grow. Expand. And that means being competitive. There are a lot of things that can play into that... how expensive is the labor force (how much do you need to pay your workers)... what kind of local/govt regulations must you meet... etc...

Any plant that is dealing with chem reactions is also going to look at maximizing the product versus dollars spent making it. What does it cost to dispose of waste from the reaction? Can the waste be channeled into another industry? Can the company do better by spending some coin on manufacturing now to see big rewards later? Some companies won't give you their business unless you have the capacity (ability to make what they want in the volumes they want) to keep them secure.

On a small scale... if I did a reaction in the lab that didn't meet the purity and/or yield I wanted... I had to take time to purify it or had to run more batches to get the amount I needed. Time and money spent on getting it where I needed it to be. On a larger scale, if I sent a product to the production floor, and if making it was a pain in the arse, tied up resources, and/or just didn't have the profit margin needed to justify making it... id get railed by top management.

Just because you can make a product doesn't mean you should. The more competetive you can be, the better. And high yield and high purity are two ways to justify making a product if there is a market that will buy it at a good price.

That doesn't mean a low yield reaction is useless... just means its going to cost more to make and its going to cost more for your customer...

I've worked in academia and in industry... in industry it wasn't chem reactions, but it was making a product using chemicals... and there's a lot that ties into whether a company will make a product.

How long does it take to make it? The longer it takes, the longer resources are tied up.

Is it stable? Meaning can you store it? For how long? Does it go bad in a month? A year? If you can store it, where do you store it? In your warehouse? Do you have room? Do you need to rent space?

What volume of that product is being sold and how much money do you make off it? If it's a big volume product, I might be willing to do some things that I wouldn't for other products. That said... a small volume product with a bigger profit isn't something you walk away from either.

In the industry where I worked, it was common to sometimes make a product that didn't meet specs. Not all the time. But enough. What could we do with this "subpar" product? Sometimes we could "work it off" into other products. Sometimes you just ate the cost of making a bad batch. No fun, but it happens.

So... hope some of this helps.

Think about anything else... it doesn't have to be about chemical reactions.

You always want the best results possible from the least "work" possible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kp2171

ive worked in academia and in industry... in industry it wasnt chem reactions, but it was making a product using chemicals... and theres a lot that ties into whether or not a company will make a product.

how long does it take to make it? the longer it takes, the longer resources are tied up.

is it stable? meaning can you store it? for how long? does it go bad in a month? a year? if you can store it, where do you store it? in your warehouse? do you have room? do you need to rent space?

what volume of that product is being sold and how much money do you make off it? if its a big volume product, i might be willing to do some things that i wouldnt for other products. that said... a small volume product with a bigger profit isnt something you walk away from either.

in the industry where i worked, it was common to sometimes make a product that didnt meet specs. not all the time. but enough. what could we do with this "subpar" product? sometimes we could "work it off" into other products. sometimes you just ate the cost of making a bad batch. no fun, but it happens.

so... hope some of this helps.

think about anything else... it doesnt have to be about chemical reactions.

you always want the best results possible from the least "work" possible.

Thank you very much that helped a lot

Unky - Perhaps I didn't answer well... maybe... don't know. I hope the OP understands better.

Absolutely nothing wrong with your post Unky. I was just fleshing out other details.

Honest truth is a manufacturer usually wants to meet standards/expectations, but that doesn't mean more pure is necessarily better, as your post mentioned.

There are times when the cost in manpower/labor and time to make something more pure than needed for end use is just a waste of resources and just bumps up the product cost or cuts into the profit margin.