What Will Tomorrow’s Chemical Plant Look Like?

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In the same boat with competitors

“The products have been selected specifically to avoid a situation where consortium members are in direct competition with each other. As a result, the project partners have no reservations about sharing information,” explained Buchholz. BASF is looking at solvent-free polymerization, Rhodia is developing new plastics and Evonik is working on a mono plant for monomers and intermediates. Arkema is developing acrolein and acrolein precursors made from biomass in an effort to expand the renewable resource base. The Karlsruhe Research Center (KIT) is focusing its efforts on micro process technology. The fluid engineering experts at Ruhr University Bochum are working on the development of modular separation equipment. The primary emphasis is on distillation techniques and adsorption to recover substances from flue gas. Prof. Marcus Grünewald, who represents Ruhr University Bochum in the consortium, explained that the goal is to shrink the towering distillation columns down to modules which are compatible with the planned plug & play system.

F³ is intended to make chemical production more flexible as well as more efficient. The goal is to decrease energy and raw material consumption and reduce changeover times. Estimates indicate that energy consumption could be cut by up to 40% and material consumption could be reduced by up to 30% during production of a typical chemical product. “What we are essentially trying to do is introduce techniques which are expected to produce a quantum leap in efficiency,” said Grömping. This in turn involves process intensification, a universal approach to efficiency improvement and resource conservation which is now widely accepted in large-scale chemical production. A study by Dominique Roberge (Lonza) indicates that 20% of all reactions in fine chemical production could benefit from process intensification.

F³ developers have no intention of completely reinventing the wheel. Each partner has its own individual solutions which currently however tend to remain insular applications at the various companies. Construction of a demonstration center will go hand in hand with the coordination effort. The center is currently being built at the Chemical Park in Leverkusen, and once it is completed in early 2011, it will be used for proof-of-concept to demonstrate technical feasibility. We will then see whether F³ revolutionizes chemical production or is quietly laid to rest.

* The author is a member of the PROCESS editorial team.

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