ETERNAL aims to contribute to sustainable development of pharmaceutical manufacture, use and disposal, by using and promoting full life cycle approaches covering design, manufacture, usage, and disposal, assessing the environmental risks of not only the API and residues/metabolites, but other chemicals and by-products of the production process. Case studies will provide industry and policymakers with key examples of how whole life cycle assessment may be used to evaluate the changes in environmental impacts expected due to the introduction of green manufacturing processes..

MultiCycle delivered an industrial recycling pilot plant for fossil and bio-based thermoplastic multilayer packaging and fibre reinforced composites using a novel solvent based selective extraction process which allows the recovery of pure plastics and additives in mixed wastes for their later reprocessing into value-added applications.

Levwave explored an innovative and highly efficient technology to produce a key sustainable chemical, levulinic acid from aqueous streams available in the paper industry. via microwave assisted catalytic transformation of aqueous biomass. The project assessed the impact of advanced catalysts on process and product, scale up to a continuous process and end uses of the products to inform techno-economic and environmental assessments that in turn will determine the commercial viability of the process from the perspective of both the paper and chemical sectors.

SPRING's objective was to increase progression towards the SPIRE goals and enhance project return on investment by addressing the needs and barriers of those who make the decisions to adopt process innovations in industry. Increasing industrial uptake of project findings was at the heart of the project. as the essential building block for ensuring greater impact of SPIRE projects and therefore progress towards the SPIRE roadmap goals of increased resource and energy efficiency in the EU process industries. Instead of focusing on a small cluster of projects, SPRING was developed to provide the mechanism to enhance the impact of all SPIRE projects.

The ADDoPT (Advanced Digital Design of Pharmaceutical Therapeutics) project addressed the pharmaceutical industry’s desire to deliver medicines more effectively to patients. ADDoPT developed and implemented advanced digital design techniques that eliminate non-viable drug candidate formulations as early as possible, streamlining design, development and manufacturing processes.

REMediES existed to drive innovation through collaboration – particularly focusing on sharing technology and expertise to improve medicine manufacturing with the aim to reduce production footprint in the manufacturing supply chain. ReMediES has highlighted the importance of reshoring manufacturing from overseas, encouraging innovation and collaboration to improve a product as it moves through the supply process.

Project STYLE had three key objectives:

• To identify best practice in sustainability evaluation, across multiple sectors in the process industries and through value chains, via inventory and classification of established approaches.
• To test and deliver a practical ‘toolkit’ for sustainability evaluation of processes and products, spanning multiple sectors that is easily usable by non-practitioners of sustainability assessments.
• To determine gaps, through critical assessment and validation, and identify future research needs to improve the ‘toolkit’ and ensure broad applicability across sectors.

Project STYLE ultimately sought to identify and deliver a practical ‘toolkit’ that could be used by future EU projects and industry to assess the value (in sustainability terms) of new technologies and process modifications that seek to make resource and energy efficiency improvements. In lieu of finding an ideal collection of open access tools, STYLE made high-level recommendations on the features and functions of an Ideal Toolkit.

D3P

The aims of this project, in which Britest partnered with PSE, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and GSK, were to facilitate an approach to drug product formulation and process design based on fundamental product and process understanding, to create a toolkit that integrates qualitative tools for process understanding, with numerical models, and to establish product and process “design spaces”, understanding the impact of uncertainty and variability . For Britest this enabled the development of Property Mapping, a tool to help link Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs) back to the Process Parameters and Material Attributes that influence them.

SYNFLOW's vision was around the paradigm shift from batch-wise large volume processes in pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals and intermediates production comprising many separate unit operations towards highly integrated but yet flexible catalytic continuous flow processing. For this purpose, SYNFLOW develops a unique integrative approach combining molecular understanding of synthesis and catalysis with engineering science in process design and plant concepts, aiming at an efficiency breakthrough in process development and operation..

PPPP

A feasibility study developing a methodology for assessing how the properties of a complex multi-phase formulation propagate through a process into the products on a qualitative/ semi-quantitative basis. The project ascertained whether existing tools used by Britest for chemical reaction processes could be modified to gain the required understanding from complex multi-phase formulations, via a polymer additives case study supplied by. Robinson Brothers Limited. Use of the new methodology and tools would also enable companies to target elements of their process that would warrant more detailed computational modelling.

BFAM

This project aims to help process development technologists better understand the potential advantages and challenges of biocatalytic processes, considering a wide range of techno-economic parameters, to support increased uptake of this technology. The project developed mostly the first two stages of a three stage methodology

1. High-level assessment of feasibility
2. Multi-parameter comparison and prioritisation of biocatalytic and chemical options
3. Biocatalyst delivery option selection

An additional output from the project was a generic representation of a biocatalytic process that allows the whole process from catalyst production through to the final biocatalytic reaction to be seen in an overview, thus aiding direct comparison of different options.

The F³ project’s vision was to strengthen the European chemical industry’s global technological leadership through the implementation of faster, more efficient, more environmentally friendly, more flexible and cost efficient production methods .The F³ Factory project focused on the development and implementation of a modular, continuous production technology using novel, intensified equipment and processes in a standardised, container-based manufacturing environment for low to medium scale production. As opposed to the traditional operation of continuous processes at large scale or batchwise operation at low to medium scale, the continuous F³ Factory processes have proven to be not only more economic but also more flexible, simple, robust and more easily adaptable to changing process requirements in the industrial environment.

The project developed and validated a design methodology and criteria for dealing with two-phase liquid-liquid reactions in chemical production processes. Leading to a new generation of flexible and high-performance process equipment (micro- through to meso-structured) for continuous manufacturing, this generic approach involved practical, theoretical and modelling aspects. The micro- and meso-scale reactors developed were applied to both bulk and fine chemical reactions. The final outputs from the project included

• Development of a novel model to simulate effects of equipment choice and process conditions on selectivity of complex reactions in liquid-liquid systems
• Fabrication and testing of six new micro- or meso- structured reactors (for 0.1 to 250 kg/h flow rates) and two flow separators
• Operation of pilot scale flexible facility demonstrating an increase in specialty chemical model reaction yield from 80 to 98%
• Demonstration of continuous operability of micro- and meso- structured reactors at high temperature and flow rates for commodity chemical production
• Publication of training materials for generic lessons of design of liquid-liquid reactions

The overall objective of IMPULSE was the effective and targeted integration of innovative process equipment such as microreactors, compact heat exchangers, thin-film devices and other micro and/or meso-structured components to attain radical performance enhancement for whole process systems in chemical production. IMPULSE delivered nine specific case studies, resulting in five industrial pilot demonstration units in the industrial sectors of pharmaceutical products, specialty chemicals and consumer goods, as well as the development of appropriate design methods, tools and training material.

An IMPULSE 'Big Book' was produced at the end of the project, summarising the essential features of the methodological developments. The 'Big Book' describes tools and methodologies to support multiscale process design for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. It provides guidance for process designers and offers decision making tools as well as technical protocols (experimentation, equipment design and process control). The aim of the IMPULSE Big Book is to provide a coherent and easily accessible description of the entire methodology to facilitate immediate deployment by experienced process technologists, either chemists or engineers.