F3 Factory: Future. Fast. Flexible
Faster, more flexible and environmentally benign chemical production Rapid response to market demand, an ability to handle a diverse product portfolio and im-proved sustainability are the key characteristics of tomorrow’s chemical production facilities. The goal is to produce chemical products and intermediates that have minimal environmental impact through the use of highly eco-efficient, scalable and adaptive process that have smaller physical and ecological footprints.
One of the major drivers for this change is fierce competition from emerging countries where large quantity production is cheaper and potentially more flexible than in Europe. New competi-tive business models will be based on novel manufacturing technologies and a holistic ap-proach to process development. The synthetic processes of traditional chemical industry will be strongly affected by new opportunities offered by biotechnology and process intensification (such as micro reaction technology). The flexible integration of inherently safe process tech-nologies with small holding volumes will be a key to success for future products.
Future sustainable F3 chemicals production will combine a much broader range of production scales with interlinking technologies and logistics. Issues both in scale-down for ‘ultra’ small-scale production of extremely high value-added products, as well as scale-up for ‘precision engineering’ of product end-use properties in high-volume sectors will need to be addressed.
An important strategy to meet the F3 challenge is Process Intensification. This is a strategic and interdisciplinary approach employing different tools (such as micro reaction technology and modularization) to improve processes holistically. The approach is business driven and therefore must address the total process, including raw materials, energy flows, staffing re-quirements and logistics issues.
To face these challenges and to combine product development with new manufacturing tech-niques, an integrated technology initiative is needed. The F3 factory is a crucial step and a prerequisite for successful and competitive future processes in Europe. A major objective will be a substantial drop in capital expenditure for new plant and/or for retrofit of high–performance intensified devices into existing infrastructure. The initiative will analyze the whole value added chain for production processes to enable new products by new processing technologies and production concepts, encompass full lifecycle to optimize the whole value added chain, minimize the use of resources and improve eco-efficiency, and deliver demonstration plants and a technology platform for future processes. The main outcome will be the development of flexible demonstration plants that bring together existing scientific concepts. Integrated process units and combined unit operations will be linked with advanced process modeling tools, in-line monitoring, model-based process man-agement and advanced process control to form centres of excellence for fast process devel-opment. This integrated technology demonstration will lead the widespread adoption of F³ Factories in Europe.
SusChem is working with a number of interested parties to fully define the concept of a demonstration F3 facility.
Contact:
Dr. Sigurd Buchholz
Bayer Technology Services GmbH
sigurd.buchholz@bayertechnology.com
