ABSTRACT

In an era of ever-increasing pressure on global material and energy resources, Advanced Manufacturing can only remain relevant by sustainably fostering its agility and affordability of products for large populations. Sustainability is a grassroots design target (rather than a retrofit option): in pharma, this is featured by new continuous organic synthesis routes which pave the way for Continuous Manufacturing. Comparative economic analyses explicitly illustrate CM advantages, securing the strong interest of global pharm corporations and regulatory (eg. FDA) bodies. Remarkable corporate investments in production-scale CPM facilities illustrate the value of this novel paradigm. Similar trends in the Food & Drink sector are due to fierce competition, and/or niche (e.g. microbrewery) high quality.

This seminar lecture will focus on our successful applications of process systems engineering methodologies (process synthesis, simulation, deterministic and stochastic optimisation, and design space visualisation) towards evaluating technical efficiency, environmental impact and economic viability of several new continuous processes for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and beverage batch manufacturing, based on lab and/or industrial recipe precedents. Detailed environmental impact comparisons and technoeconomic results will also be presented.