Reaction & Process Design Workgroup

Group leader: Dr. Klaus SOMMER, Bayer Technology Services. 

Contact: bazzanella@dechema.de

Reaction and process design is of vital importance for the chemical industry. Product life cycles are becoming shorter and specialty chemicals can rapidly become higher volume commodity products. The only way to remain profitable under these high cost pressure conditions is to keep a high level of excellence in the area of process intensification. It is of paramount importance to have the best, i.e. the fastest, cheapest and cleanest production processes.

Reaction and process design is an overarching technology that can be applied to all areas of chemistry. The importance of technology leadership in this area is even more important due to the commercial threat from Asia where chemical products are produced at lower costs than in Europe. In many cases, the focus of chemical research, as opposed to pharmaceutical and agrochemical research, does not lie in the search for novel structures, but in the optimization of production processes for basic chemicals, intermediates and fine chemicals known to society for many years.

The Technology Platform will reflect the way this field evolves, the synergy at universities between research and education in chemistry and chemical engineering, and will promote the necessary interactions between these disciplines to result in innovations in process and reaction design.