Fine Chemical Processes and Plants
Since the early nineties, IMM, particularly the Department of Mixing and Fine Chemicals, is leading in using the prospects and the potential of continous processing in micro reactors, in particular for the chemical industry. The crucial advantages of using a continous process within a micro reactor comprise the improved heat and mass transfer as well as the well-defined residence times. These advantages allow, for instance, to run an exothermic reaction in a nearly isothermic way and, thus, to eliminate unwanted side reactions, to intensify processes, to open-up new process conditions being not accessible with conventional equipment and to achieve customized product quality.
Competencies in the development and realization of micro reactors, in process development and optimization and in the configuration and buildup of plants enables IMM to offer an integrated approach to its customers, which also includes cost analysis. Even if currently the activities are focused on fine chemicals and speciality chemistry, tasks from the fields of consumer goods industry, e. g. production of emulsions, and bulk and petrochemistry are also dealt with. All development works at IMM focus on technical feasibility, which means transfering developments into production. Accordingly, IMM stresses the attainability of operational throughput and the scale-up respectively scale-out of processes and components.