Chemical process development, process technology and scale up

An optimised chemical process is fundamental for creating a sustainable process from technical, regulatory, economical, safety, health and environmental perspectives. 

The testbed is designed for the development and optimisation of continuous and batch processes along with scaling up from laboratory to pilot scale. RISE offer includes extensive expertise in analytical and synthetic chemistry, chemical engineering and process development.

Examples of areas are:

• High pressure and high temperature applications, up to 350 bar and 550°C in 0.5 L to 8 L scale
• Industrial process design, process development, optimization, up scaling and validation on a scale of 50 mL to 100 L
• Process development and testing of continuous process technology including reactions, crystallization, distillation and extraction on a scale of 1 mL to 5 L
• High capacity screening and optimization of chemical transformations including homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis and enzymatic catalysis
• Process safety evaluation and characterization
• Extensive expertise in industrial crystallization
• Effective retrieval and analysis of experimental data via digital systems including automated test equipment and process analytical tools (UV-VIS, IR, NIR, RAMAN and FBRM)
• Scale up and manufacturing of substances and materials for demonstration purposes
• Testing of specific equipment and feasibility studies prior to investment decisions
• Modelling of chemical processes including techno-economic analysis (TEA)

Examples of special equipment available in the testbed:

• Oscillatory baffled reactor for crystallization and two- and three-phase systems
• High pressure and high temperature (<350°C, 100 bar) fixed bed flow reactor (flows <10 mL / min) with hydrogen possibility
• Batch reactors for high pressure and high temperature chemistry (45 mL - 8 L)
• Continuous heat exchange reactor
• Centrifugal extractor
• Thin film evaporator
• Pressure filters
• Distillation equipment for fractional batch distillation
• Karr column for continuous extraction

Because of the flexibility of the testbed, it can be used for testing and developing of various processes such as for bio-based fuels, bio-based chemicals, fine- and bulk chemicals and pharmaceutical substances.