Revolutionary plans
Degussa are working hard to make a quantum leap in process yield

Degussa have opened up their sixth Project House, which is called “Process Intensification”. The company is planning to invest $18 million into new process strategies and reactor concepts over the next three years. PROCESS took a look on-site at the industrial park in Hanau-Wolfgang/Germany and caught up with the managers who are responsible for this new Project House. One thing is already clear: their plans are very ambitious.

Degussa, who are based in the industrial park in Hanau-Wolfgang, are actually planning their “revolution” years in advance within the framework of the new Project House “Process Intensification”. According to Project House manager Dr. Henrik Hahn, “to intensify is to revolutionize, not optimize step-by-step”. However, the team’s sights are not set on the familiar “bottleneck” with a view of widening it. Instead, the group of 17 chemists and engineers are looking for a quantum leap which will give processes a clear boost towards the limits of what can be achieved in theory—or one which will deliver completely new process methods. Dr. Markus Rudek (Corporate Innovation Management) quickly identifies the parameters on which the new Project House will be measured: productivity, development time, manufacturing costs and, ultimately, the market share which can be gained through applying the results obtained during the Project House. “

Our goals? Processes and plant technology which combine the latest technologies with lower investment costs and shorter implementation times.” Rudek explains that the advantage of the new approach is not just the way in which it allows capacities to be adapted flexibly to increasing demand, but that application of the new technology should also pave the way for innovative new products.
Focusing on advanced technologies
All of the previous Degussa Project Houses have combined the expertise of several business units to establish advanced technology platforms for the company. In keeping with this proven research concept, the interdisciplinary team has three years to realize its plans. In the process it will benefit from the knowledge and expertise of the seven participating business units, the Process Technology & Engineering Service Unit, and the Center of Excellence for Catalysis. Additionally, selected cooperations with universities and research institutes should guarantee access to the latest scientific advances and methods.
So what specific targets are planned for these three years? The new Project House will develop process strategies for the three product areas “Highly active catalysts”, “Functional materials” and “Disperse systems”. The fourth area, and the one that brings together the other three product areas, is “Chemical ExplorENG”. This stands for Exploring Chemical Engineering, an approach in which modular plant concepts are developed for manufacturing specialty chemicals. In the process, the Project House provides a one-stop solution for the entire technology value-added chain—from synthesis to finished plant.
Microreactor technology for highly active catalysts
The Project House plans to utilize micro process engineering technology in the field of highly active catalysts in the form of an innovative reactor concept, with the aim of significantly improving heterogeneous catalyzed gas phase synthesis. During the development of the microreactor, the Project House will profit from the findings of the “Demonstration project for evaluation of microreaction technology in industrial systems”, or DEMiS for short, a joint project which was carried out very successfully between Degussa and German engineering contractor Uhde.
In order to fully exploit the potential of micro process engineering technology, highly active catalysts and new catalyst preparation methods are needed. This is further bolstered by the knowledge and expertise which has come together in the newly built Degussa Center of Excellence for Catalysis in the field of high throughput methods for the manufacturing and testing of catalysts. In the area of functional materials, the work focuses on finding new ways to encapsulate solid substances, polymerize water-insoluble monomers and manufacture superfine organic particles. The Project House team has its eye on products like tunable adhesives and impact modifiers for duroplastics, which exploit the properties of so-called miniemulsion droplets—superfine droplets with narrow size distribution and particle diameters ranging from 10 to 100 nm. This type of “nano-droplet” microreactor can only be generated by means of a high specific energy deposit during the emulsification process. Although there are plenty of recent scientific papers which impressively demonstrate how miniemulsions can be achieved under laboratory conditions, technical implementation in production systems has so far proved elusive with conventional means. In the other core area, disperse systems, the aim is to shorten process times and thereby achieve greater process efficiency. The Project House plans to research alternative process routes for manufacturing color pastes and new reactor concepts for intensive fermentation which could broaden the scope of the classic agitating tub fermenter. “The production strains for fermentation have been continuously improved in recent years. The Project House can make a contribution here to consolidate the progress made within the company in the field of strain development by completing it in terms of the corresponding reactor technology,” explains Dr. Hahn. For example, one of the main areas is reactors which increase the level of oxygen enrichment, one of the key limiting factors during fermentation.
In conclusion, although other chemical and pharmaceutical companies are also looking into new and innovative technologies and are exploring new business opportunities, none of them are doing it with the same thoroughness or consistency as Degussa. Degussa’s approach of starting special Project Houses for certain activities is based on both a strict time and cost frame, together with their “Science to Business” philosophy—an exemplary approach which, to all intents and purposes, represents a benchmark for Europeans Chemical industry.