Leverkusen, Germany - Bayer Technology Services (BTS) and TU Dortmund University have opened a research centre at Chempark Leverkusen, called Invite.
According to Bayer, Invite stands for INnovations, VIsions and TEchnologies. The facility is dedicated to the development and testing of flexible and efficient production concepts for the "Factory of the Future" that help to conserve resources.
Managing director Dr Thomas Bieringer used the opening to announce an innovative pharmaceutical production concept in which containerised modules are connected in series like building blocks.
TU Dortmund University has strengths in biological and chemical engineering and has long collaborated with Bayer on research and development projects.
One of the first projects Invite will run is the EU-funded "F3 Factory" project. F3 stands for Fast, Flexible, Future. This involves 25 partners, including seven leading chemical groups, who have put aside competing interests to combine the advantages of larger, better optimised plants with those of smaller, more flexible plants.
The idea is to build chemical factories according to a modular principle with standard apparatus consolidated into containers that can be connected in series to form a complete plant, said a 21 Sept Bayer announcement.
Both stakeholders of Invite GmbH are participants the Euro 30-million F3 project, coordinated by Bayer Technology Services.
Other cross-sector research projects under the Invite umbrella involve innovative means of reacting and using carbon dioxide. One development here has seen a pilot plant opened to evaluate use novel catalysts to produce polyether polyols for polyurethane manufacture from waste CO2.
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