Leading European chemical industry companies are crossing competitive boundaries to launch an EU-funded project called "F3 Factory", a programme for the development of more efficient and sustainable processes in the chemical industry.
The consortium of 25 research institutes and universities from Europe have joined forces to come up with technologies and production concepts for the "F3 factory", that will Increase efficiency and flexibility, reducing raw material costs, making the factory of the future more effective, more flexible and, above all, to conserve natural resources.
The project is scheduled to run for four years and has funding of approximately e30 m, e18 m of which is being provided by the EU through its 7th Framework Program (FP7).
The goals are to design and develop the modular continuous plant (the F3 plant), to standardise processes and their interfaces and also to demonstrate the capabilities of the F3 Factory with existing products. The efficiency and scalability of continuous plants are to be combined with the versatility of batch plants.
A further focal point of the F3 Factory is the development of products such as solvent-free polymers, custom-tailored surfactants, high value-added building blocks and intermediates for pharmaceuticals and innovative materials based on renewable materials.
A supporting demonstration and development centre will be constructed in CHEMPARK Leverkusen, Germany. Work on the building is scheduled to begin in late 2009/early 2010, with completion expected by the beginning of 2011.
All partners met for the F3 Factory launch on 8th June at the Bayer Technology Services headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany. Bayer's technology subgroup will coordinate the EU project throughout its four-year period. On the launch day, the project participants formed smaller working groups to coordinate tasks and to determine responsibilities for the first project phase.
The chemistry consortium has set itself three major targets. It aims to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the F3 Factory concept at the technology centre. Furthermore, the project participants want to show that F3 Factory-style processes are more economical, eco-efficient and sustainable than conventional processes in continuously operating world-scale plants or those in small and medium sized batch-plants. They will also look at the joint development of modular plug-and-play technologies.
"Innovative concepts of process intensification enormously increase energy and resource efficiencies. This leads to a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly manufacture of existing bulk and fine chemicals as well as to entirely new products with elevated added value", said Herbert von Bose, Director of Industrial Technologies, Directorate G of the European Commission Directorate-General for Research.
According to calculations of the consortium, the European chemical industry could reduce costs by about e3.75 bn just by switching existing production facilities over to the F3 Factory concept - while opening up new markets in the meantime.
The F3 Factory consortium consists of: Arkema, AstraZeneca, BASF, Bayer Technology Services, Britest, Buss-SMS-Canzler, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS, Coatex, Technical University of Denmark, Ehrfeld Mikrotechnik BTS, Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine - ENSIC, Evonik Degussa, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institute of Catalysis & Surface Chemistry PAS, Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Process Design Center, Rhodia, RWTH Aachen University, Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Eindhoven University of Technology, University of Newcastle, University of Paderborn, Procter & Gamble, Ruhr-University Bochum. Its members stem from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK .
