School of Engineering News
A €500k grant to the School of Engineering as part of a large collaborative FP7 project - SYNFLOW
SYNFLOW - €11 million EU research project launched
SYNFLOW - large-scale EU research project was officially launched on 25th October 2010 at the kick-off meeting at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.
SYNFLOW which stands for "Innovative Synthesis in Continuous-Flow Processes for Sustainable Chemical Production" aims to develop new methodology and novel catalytic systems for chemical production that are more cost effective and have a lower environmental impact.
The vision of SYNFLOW is to create a paradigm shift from batch-wise, large volume processes in chemical production towards highly integrated but yet flexible catalytic continuous flow processing. To achieve this goal, SYNFLOW will develop a unique integrated approach which combines the molecular understanding of synthesis and catalysis with the engineering science involved in process design and plant concepts.
SYNFLOW is a four-year project funded under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme. It involves 19 consortium partners embracing industry and academia from 8 EU countries working together across industrial and scientific boundaries. The project is being coordinated by Prof. Dr. Walter Leitner from the Institute for Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.
In addition to leading European academic institutions, major industrial partners involved in the project include AstraZeneca, Bayer Technology Services, Evonik Oxeno, Johnson Matthey and Britest. DECHEMA - Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology e.V. will be responsible for the overall project organisation.
Within SYNFLOW the Warwick team, led by Professor Alexei Lapkin, will work on reactor concepts for specific case studies in close collaboration with other academic partners and industrial 'owners' of the case studies, and will also assess economic and environmental sustainability of the new SYNFLOW processes, benchmarking against current technologies.