Digitalization in Catalysis and Reaction Engineering: Automatizing Work Flows

Abstract

Digitalization and surrounding efforts fostered by the advent of Industry 4.0 have been a development topic in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering for several years – so timing may be right to look back and to question what the impact of efforts made, and to judge the impact of workflows and technologies developed. First and foremost, the first two key principle of Industry 4.0, namely Interconnectivity and Information Transparency play the crucial role in the context of Digitalization as only a seamless flow of data based on standardized formats remains key to enabling Decentralized Decisions and Technical Assistance. Digitization and digital tools play a key role in the acceleration data transfer and development efforts, the automation and autonomation of technical equipment employed, and the digital transformation of “classical” chemical reaction engineering processes towards an ideal originally projected by the high-tech agenda of Industry 4.0. In this presentation we will start our journey with fully integrated environments on a laboratory level where data are not only made available in data warehouses but can be used to drive feedback loops to autonomously drive experimental devices.