Separation technology as a sub-discipline of thermal process engineering is one of the most critical steps in the production of chemicals, essential for the quality of intermediate and end products. ...The discipline comprises the construction of facilities that convert raw materials into value-added products along the value chain. Conversions typically take place in repeated reaction and separation steps—either in batch or continuous processes. The end products are the result of several production and separation steps that are not only sequentially linked, but also include the treatment of unused raw materials, by-products and wastes. Production processes in the process industry are particularly susceptible to fluctuations in raw materials and other influences affecting product quality. This is a challenge, despite increasing fluctuations, to deliver targeted quality and simultaneously meet the increasing dynamics of the market, at least for high value fine chemicals. In order to survive successfully in a changed environment, chemical companies must tread new paths. This includes the potential of digital technologies. The full integration and intelligent networking of systems and processes is progressing hesitantly. This contribution aims to encourage a more holistic approach to the digitalization in thermal process engineering by introduction of integrated and networked systems and processes.
The preparation of new active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) multicomponent crystal forms, especially co-crystals and salts, is being considered as a reliable strategy to improve API solubility and ...bioavailability. In this study, three novel imidazole-based salts of the poorly water-soluble salicylic acid (SA) are reported exhibiting a remarkable improvement in solubility and dissolution rate properties. All structures were solved by powder X-ray diffraction. Multiple complementary techniques were used to solve co-crystal/salt ambiguities: density functional theory calculations, Raman and
H/
C solid-state NMR spectroscopies. In all molecular salts, the crystal packing interactions are based on a common charged assisted
N-H
⋯ O
hydrogen bond interaction. The presence of an extra methyl group in different positions of the co-former, induced different supramolecular arrangements, yielding salts with different physicochemical properties. All salts present much higher solubility and dissolution rate than pure SA. The most promising results were obtained for the salts with imidazole and 1-methylimidazole co-formers.
Complex processes meet and need Industry 4.0 capabilities. Shorter product cycles, flexible production needs, and direct assessment of product quality attributes and raw material attributes call for ...an increased need of new process analytical technologies (PAT) concepts. While individual PAT tools may be available since decades, we need holistic concepts to fulfill above industrial needs. In this series of two contributions, we want to present a combined view on the future of PAT (process analytical technology), which is projected in smart labs (Part 1) and smart sensors (Part 2). Part 2 of this feature article series describes the future functionality as well as the ingredients of a smart sensor aiming to eventually fuel full PAT functionality. The smart sensor consists of (i) chemical and process information in the physical twin by smart field devices, by measuring multiple components, and is fully connected in the IIoT 4.0 environment. In addition, (ii) it includes process intelligence in the digital twin, as to being able to generate knowledge from multi-sensor and multi-dimensional data. The cyber-physical system (CPS) combines both elements mentioned above and allows the smart sensor to be self-calibrating and self-optimizing. It maintains its operation autonomously. Furthermore, it allows—as central PAT enabler—a flexible but also target-oriented predictive control strategy and efficient process development and can compensate variations of the process and raw material attributes. Future cyber-physical production systems—like smart sensors—consist of the fusion of two main pillars, the physical and the digital twins. We discuss the individual elements of both pillars, such as connectivity, and chemical analytics on the one hand as well as hybrid models and knowledge workflows on the other. Finally, we discuss its integration needs in a CPS in order to allow its versatile deployment in efficient process development and advanced optimum predictive process control.
Process control with compact NMR Meyer, Klas; Kern, Simon; Zientek, Nicolai ...
TrAC, Trends in analytical chemistry (Regular ed.),
October 2016, 2016-10-00, Letnik:
83
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•Compact NMR is extremely useful for the process industry.•This review builds an interdisciplinary bridge between process control and compact NMR.•Read about contemporary automation and process ...control.
Compact nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instruments make NMR spectroscopy and relaxometry accessible in industrial and harsh environments for reaction and process control. An increasing number of applications are reported. To build an interdisciplinary bridge between “process control” and “compact NMR”, we give a short overview on current developments in the field of process engineering such as modern process design, integrated processes, intensified processes along with requirements to process control, model based control, or soft sensing. Finally, robust field integration of NMR systems into processes environments, facing explosion protection or integration into process control systems, are briefly discussed.
The competitiveness of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry is based on ensuring the required product quality while making optimum use of plants, raw materials, and energy. In this context, ...effective process control using reliable chemical process analytics secures global competitiveness. The setup of those control strategies often originate in process development but need to be transferable along the whole product life cycle. In this series of two contributions, we want to present a combined view on the future of PAT (process analytical technology), which is projected in smart labs (part 1) and smart sensors (part 2). In laboratories and pilot plants, offline chemical analytical methods are frequently used, where inline methods are also used in production. Here, a transferability from process development to the process in operation would be desirable. This can be obtained by establishing PAT methods for production already during process development or scale-up. However, the current PAT (Bakeev
2005
, Org Process Res 19:3–62; Simon et al.
2015
, Org Process Res Dev 19:3–62) must become more flexible and smarter. This can be achieved by introducing digitalization-based knowledge management, so that knowledge from product development enables and accelerates the integration of PAT. Conversely, knowledge from the production process will also contribute to product and process development. This contribution describes the future role of the laboratory and develops requirements therefrom. In part 2, we examine the future functionality as well as the ingredients of a smart sensor aiming to eventually fuel full PAT functionality—also within process development or scale-up facilities (Eifert et al.
2020
, Anal Bioanal Chem).
Monitoring specific chemical properties is the key to chemical process control. Today, mainly optical online methods are applied, which require time- and cost-intensive calibration effort. NMR ...spectroscopy, with its advantage being a direct comparison method without need for calibration, has a high potential for enabling closed-loop process control while exhibiting short set-up times. Compact NMR instruments make NMR spectroscopy accessible in industrial and rough environments for process monitoring and advanced process control strategies. We present a fully automated data analysis approach which is completely based on physically motivated spectral models as first principles information (indirect hard modeling—IHM) and applied it to a given pharmaceutical lithiation reaction in the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project CONSENS. Online low-field NMR (LF NMR) data was analyzed by IHM with low calibration effort, compared to a multivariate PLS-R (partial least squares regression) approach, and both validated using online high-field NMR (HF NMR) spectroscopy.
Graphical abstract
NMR sensor module for monitoring of the aromatic coupling of 1-fluoro-2-nitrobenzene (FNB) with aniline to 2-nitrodiphenylamine (NDPA) using lithium-bis(trimethylsilyl) amide (Li-HMDS) in continuous operation. Online 43.5 MHz low-field NMR (LF) was compared to 500 MHz high-field NMR spectroscopy (HF) as reference method
The design of sample flow cells, commonly used in on-line analytics and especially for medium resolution NMR spectroscopy (MR-NMR) in low magnetic fields, was experimentally and theoretically ...investigated by 1H NMR and numerical simulations. The flow pattern was characterised to gain information about the residence time distribution and mixing effects. Both 1H NMR imaging and spectroscopy were used to determine the characteristics of flow cells and their significance for on-line measurements such as reaction monitoring or hyphenated separation spectroscopy. The volume flow rates investigated were in the range from 0.1 to 10ml/min, typically applied in the above mentioned applications. The special characteristics of flow cells for MR-NMR were revealed by various NMR experiments and compared with CFD simulations and to flow cells commonly used in high-field NMR. The influence of the design of the inlet and outlet on the flow pattern was investigated as well as the effect of the length of the cell. For practical use, a numerical estimation of the inflow length was given. In addition, it was shown how experiments on the polarisation build-up revealed insight into the flow characteristics in MR-NMR.
► Bypass systems for process analytical applications. ► Residence time distribution of bypass tubing via 1H NMR spectroscopy. ► Importance of flow cell in the analytical device investigated. ► Characterisation of flow in different cells by tomography. ► Investigation towards optimal design of the cell via computational fluid dynamics.