From Batch to Continuous Production Through Micro Process Technology: Chances and Challenges

The majority of the manufacturing processes in the chemical, pharmaceutical, food or cosmetics industry is operated as batch processes. This is economically advantageous in cases where - capacities per product are low, in the range of 10 kg/a to 1000 t/a - many different educts have to be mixed and processed for the product, i.e. a recipe-based manufacturing, - many different but similar products have to be produced, - educts have to be fed at different times and with varying quantities, - educts show problematic properties such as high viscosity, solids or stickiness, - problematic processing behaviour such as fouling, foaming, viscous intermediate phases or undesired precipitation, is found, - manufacturing has to meet a sometimes stochastic market demand or - the process consist of only a few process steps like mixing, heating, reaction and cooling.