Imperial College London has teamed up with chemical producer BASF to help advance chemical research and development (R&D) in the UK.
The partnership will mean Imperial can provide useful data on renewable energy solutions and how to use energy and materials more efficiently, which will help the chemical industry improve their output and reduce their carbon footprint.
Professor Ian Walmsley of Imperial College London said: “Our strategic partnership with BASF is helping us to translate our expertise into practical insights and innovations that bring tangible benefits.”
BASF and Imperial will focus on developing continuous production methods for pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and speciality chemicals. This ‘flow chemistry’ technique improves the quality, safety, and efficacy of the manufacturing process. It also creates thorough datasets, which speeds up R&D.
Flow chemistry is also being favoured due to its resilience to supply shortages, which the sector has experienced over the last couple of years, as a result of the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine. As manufacturers can swap raw materials more easily within flow chemistry, and use several continuous production facilities, this reduces the risk of experiencing a shortage.
Imperial also claims this “innovative approach to chemical production” will make the chemical manufacturing process far more efficient, with the process being “easier to control” and the results more consistent and reliable.
Imperial’s Department of Computing Professor Ruth Misener, BASF / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Data-Driven Optimisation, stated the university’s ability to apply digital technologies to chemical R&D and manufacturing will also provide a boost to the industry.
“This can greatly benefit from new algorithms that can be used in research, for example, to make decisions on which experiments should be carried out next,” Professor Misener commented.
Find out more about chemical manufacturing in the UK here.