Pictures of the Future Fall 2006
Sustainable City Development – Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals
Perfecting Processes
Efficiency, safety and flexible production are trends that are crucial to the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Siemens helps customers in these fields by offering new processes, modern facilities and sophisticated automation technology.
BASF around 1920 (above). Where quality control was once a question of the plant operator’s skills, it is now largely dependent on automation technology
The second half of the 19th century was a period when chemistry flourished. Many large factories were built, and there was no doubt where they should be located: outside of cities. The fear that production facilities would produce noxious odors and polluted waste water was completely justified.
In 1865, a citizens’ committee therefore rejected Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik’s (BASF) request to allow it to establish itself in Mannheim, Germany. The company moved to the opposite side of the Rhine to Ludwigshafen, still a small town at the time, which approved construction of a production facility outside the city limits. Since then, BASF’s factory complex and the city of Ludwigshafen have grown to form a single prospering partnership.
Today the chemical industry is focused on minimizing its resource use and environmental impact. For example, by participating in the worldwide "Responsible Care" initiative, the industry has obligated itself to consider the impact of its activities on society and future generations when making decisions—a perceptible contribution to sustainable development, according to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).
Progress has been made possible through new technologies and processes, such as biotechnical methods, catalytic processes and membrane technology, new plant planning concepts and, last but not least, through enormous improvements in automation and control—an area in which Siemens in particular has made major contributions.
Chemical plants today are managed reliably and economically with computer-assisted process control systems. Plant operators manage facilities and follow processes on monitors. "The control center has become a nerve center—a place where information and process know-how come together," says Markus Günther, Siemens’ Chemical Industry sector manager "The trend is going in the direction of putting more and more intelligence into the equipment and electronics on site—in other words, at the locations where measuring and controlling are performed. This, in turn, is opening up opportunities for innovations in process control technology, such as asset management for optimizing the availability and maintenance of plant components."
Process control systems can pinpoint disturbances in processes and respond to them automatically. And when it comes to monitoring high risk areas, fail-safe systems can return equipment to a safe state under all imaginable circumstances—even if the operating system has failed. Until recently, such systems had to be installed together with dedicated hardware and software—a significant financial and organizational constraint. That problem has, however, been solved thanks to the latest generation of Siemens process control systems.
"Our Simatic PCS 7 has an open and flexible design," says Günther. "It allows fail-safe functions to be easily integrated. With this development, we are the first company to have combined these completely separate systems on a joint platform."
Migrations, Modernizations and New Plants. Worldwide, thousands of plants will be modernized over the next few years, with many requiring new process control systems. "Ideally, such facilities should continue normal operations during migration to a new system as far as possible," says Günther. "A one-day shutdown in a large facility can represent a loss of over a million euros."
For each migration project, Siemens develops an individual strategy tailored to the facility’s individual requirements. "Migration cannot take place without solid, detailed and well thought-out planning," says Ulrich Dallmeier, Head of Electrical, Measurement and Control Technology at INEOS Phenol, a company that operates the world’s largest phenol plant. Located in Gladbeck, Germany, the company recently switched to Siemens’ PCS 7 process control system.
Completely different challenges emerge during the planning of a new plant. Here, chemical manufacturers have to decide on plant size, location, and process to optimize production of a desired product. In this connection, two major trends have developed. "Basic chemicals that are needed in huge quantities are being produced in increasingly large plants that are located close to the source of raw materials and close to the processing industries," says Günther. Short transportation paths save money and reduce environmental impact. The larger the facility, the lower its production costs per ton. "By contrast, the special chemicals industry favors plants that can be utilized flexibly, so that they can produce different products in the same system." In this case, decentralized, consumer-oriented production makes more sense.
Dr. Wolfgang Scheiding, Head of the Pharmaceuticals Competence Center at Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D), paints a similar picture of his industry: "On the one hand, pharmaceutical manufacturers want to develop blockbuster drugs with annual sales in excess of a billion euros. On the other hand, the trend is toward development of more and more specialized medicines."
Scheiding predicts that "there could eventually be personalized drugs that are exactly tailored to a the disease profile, weight, size and habits of the patient. Such a medication could be issued as needed at a an automated dispensing station based on the data on a patient’s chip card. The automation and information technology to accomplish this is already available at Siemens."
Mini-Factory Revolution. Tough global competition is placing chemical and pharmaceutical companies under increasing pressure to bring new products to market in the shortest possible time. But new compounds and processes have to be brought from the research stage to production as quickly as possible—something micro-processing technology is helping to accomplish while at the same time opening entirely new opportunities. In a micro-processing-based chemical production system, substances that are to react with each other chemically are placed in hair-thin channels, mixed and brought to a reaction point.
The original substances flow in through the front, and the product flows continuously out through the back. The channels’ measurements lie in the range of a few tenths of a millimeter. "Such fine structures have very large surfaces in relation to their volume. That makes heat exchange highly effective. And risks are drastically reduced because only minimal amounts of substances are in the system," says Dr. Thomas Bayer, who is responsible for the development of micro-processing systems at Siemens A&D in Frankfurt.
The Siprocess mini factory with automation technology. The system, which is ready to run within one day, can deliver 70 t of liquid products annually, is very flexible, and can be converted quickly to produce other materials
"Micro-processing systems are ideal for companies that have to produce their products in relatively small quantities, as is, for example, the case in the pharmaceutical industry. It’s also conceivable to produce a substance at several locations simultaneously to avoid long transportation routes," explains Bayer. Even the location issue can be viewed from a new perspective because of the low hazard potential. All things considered, the city of Mannheim would probably grant a construction permit for a modern chemical plant today. Who knows, maybe BASF could get a second chance.
Björn Gondesen
Chemicals in Hair-Thin Channels
The Siprocess micro-processing system combines micro technology, automation and modularity. The system consists of compact modules and a control device with a monitor. The modules are inserted into a rack and joined together. Each module takes on a certain task, such as dosing, mixing and reacting, regulating pressure or taking samples. Together, the modules cover all functions that are required for a chemical reaction. Each module contains all the sensors and actuators that it needs for its function. Actuators are systems that translate control signals into actions. In the dosing module (in the picture without its cover), for example, there are two high-precision dosage pumps and pump valves that exhibit very little pulsation when they switch; pressure is measured with pressure sensors. The heart of the system is the reaction module, where the micro-reactor (photo upper right) is located. This contains the extremely fine reaction section including thicker channels, with which the section is brought to the right temperature. Siprocess can convert two or three basic substances into one product. The system is currently being tested by pilot customers.