Eliminating barriers to entry of a production scale continuous flow reactor for the chemical industry

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Flow reactors are a continuous, lean manufacturing alternative to traditional batch-wise manufacturing methods employed by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Continuous flow manufacturing offers the chemical industry a route towards; reducing its carbon footprint by reducing process energy requirements and waste generation, re-shoring production to strengthen supply chains and increasing existing process plant productive capacity. Flow reactors are inherently more efficient (by virtue of reduced size) than currently used batch reactors and variously offer higher yields of chemical product, improved chemical product purity, lower energy costs, lower process solvent usage and lower process waste generation.AM Technology are a leading manufacturer of flow reactors, with our patented Coflore range of reactors in daily use worldwide across the chemical and pharmaceutical industries at R&D and pilot-scale. To date, economic barriers have limited widespread adoption of production-scale flow reactors. AM Technology will exploit advanced manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing for equipment development as part of this project to greatly decrease manufacturing costs and overcome this commercial customer barrier for adoption.An energy comparison model will be generated as part of this project and published in a white paper to clearly outline the potential savings and efficiencies to be realised by switching to lean chemical manufacturing. This, combined with lower manufacturing costs, will remove the economic barriers to technology adoption across the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and result in increased sales and revenue for AM Technology, coupled with job creation in the Northwest.The flow reactor technology being refined by AM Technology as part of this project will enable the chemical industry to significantly increase their high-value production, reduce chemical manufacturing energy consumption and increase resource efficiency. The UK chemical industry is geographically concentrated in Northwest England, with the sector worth around £10bn according to Chemicals Northwest, and as such development of this technology will contribute to the LCR's ambition to reach net zero carbon by 2040 or sooner.