The CSIRO is focused on ways to make chemical manufacturing more efficient, with the help of a new research centre that will look at flow chemistry.
The CSIRO’s new FloWorks Centre for Industrial Flow Chemistry has been launched in Clayton, Victoria. The centre will provide cutting-edge research into flow chemistry capability, and how it can make this technique and technologies more accessible to the chemical manufacturing industry.
According to senior research scientist with CSIRO’s manufacturing sector and Director of the FloWorks centre, Dr Christian Hornung, flow chemistry offers a cleaner, smarter and more efficient way of making chemicals.
“The benefits of using the flow process include reduced reaction times and plant space, which equate to less energy cost, more efficient processes, reduced waste and a much safer environment," Dr Hornung said.
Unlike traditional batch chemistry methods, in flow chemistry, starting materials are fed into a reactor, where the chemical reaction takes place in a continuous stream. In many cases, this is a much more efficient and cost-effective way of producing chemicals.
This method of multi-stage processing eliminates the need to manually handle chemicals in between steps, improving worker safety and efficiency. In-line purification also makes the system more streamlined.
The manufacturing process is automated to a large degree, with the help of smart monitoring and on-line analysis.
Already, some Australian industry partners are using flow chemistry to great effect. One example is Boron Molecular, which uses flow chemistry at its Noble Park plant to manufacture fine chemicals that are used by the Australian and international pharmaceutical and materials science industries.
According to Zoran Manev from Boron Molecular, CSIRO helped the manufacturer integrate flow chemistry into its operations.
"We use our unit to develop a number of processes or convert them from batch to flow,” he exaplined.
“Flow chemistry enables us to make purer molecules, so we have fewer side products and fewer issues when we scale up to manufacture from small scale to larger tonne lots.”
As a result, Boron Molecular has to use far less solvents and energy, and is discarding less waste material into the environment.
The purpose-built 410m2 FloWorks facility will offer everything from early discovery stages to industrial scale-up and tech transfer. It incorporates all of CSIRO’s flow chemistry equipment, and its capabilities will range from small-scale discovery tools to large-scale industrial reactors.
The new collaborative space would generate greater engagement with industry and other research bodies, with the aim of seeing flow technology being adopted by chemical manufacturers in all areas.