Collaboration Established to Develop New Surfactant Manufacturing Techniques
WILTON, UK - The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) is working with major specialty chemical manufacturer Croda Europe, NiTech Solutions and The University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing on a collaborative research and development project to develop a novel method for the continuous production of a range of market-leading surfactants. The two-year Innovate UK project will design, build and trial a modular unit based on NiTech’s patented continuous oscillating baffle reactor (COBR) technology.
The aim of the industry-led project is to deliver a new process for the manufacturing of existing products that significantly improves operational and capital costs, as well as process sustainability, without impacting product quality. Continuous processes are usually well suited to integrate with equivalent existing batch manufacturing assets to provide increased capacity. Their compact design will often enable this to be done without the need for additional supporting infrastructure and extended footprint.