What's holding back continuous manufacturing?
Despite manay advantages, the move to flow chemistry in fine and speciality chemicals is slow
Continuous manufacturing of chemicals is reaching a tipping point. Bulk chemicals have been produced in continuous processes for decades. But more complex materials, produced in tens or a few hundred tonnes per year, are still predominantly cooked up in large batch reactors. That is changing, but the transition is slow.
At a symposium on industrial flow chemistry run by the Royal Society of Chemistry’s fine and speciality chemicals sector interest group, I heard a lot of optimistic speakers extolling the virtues of continuous processes, and how implementing them had made their manufacturing safer, cheaper, quicker and more reliable. One could be forgiven for wondering why more people haven’t already made the switch.