Intensified continuous processes are a key innovation of the last decade for the production of high quality, high value and customer-specific products at competitive prices in a sustainable fashion. To realize the potential of this technology, key steps must be made towards long-term stable, tightly controlled and fully automated production. The goal of the CONSENS project is to advance the continuous production of high-value products meeting high quality demands in flexible intensified continuous plants by introducing novel online sensing equipment and closed-loop control of the key product parameters. CONSENS will focus on flexible continuous plants but the results will be transferable also to large-scale continuous processes. The research and development is driven by industrial case studies from three different areas, spanning the complete value chain of chemical production: complex organic synthesis, speciality polymers, and formulation of complex liquids. Innovative PAT technology will be developed for online concentration measurements (mid-resolution process NMR), for the online non-invasive measurement of rheological properties of complex fluids, and for continuous measurements of fouling in tubular reactors. New model-based adaptive control schemes based on innovative PAT technology will be developed. The project results will be validated in industrial pilot plants for all three types of processes, including validation in production containers that have been developed in the F3 Factory project. Further, methods for sensor failure monitoring, control performance monitoring and engineering support for PAT-based solutions will be developed. The exploitation of the new technologies will be facilitated by a tool for technology evaluation and economic impact assessment. A Cross-sectorial Advisory Board supports the transfer of PAT technologies and adaptive control to neighboring sectors of the European processing industry.

OPTISOCHEM goal is to demonstrate the performances, reliability as well as environmental and socio-economic sustainability of the entire value chains, for the transformation of excess wheat straw into bio-Isobutene (bio-IBN) derivatives. To achieve these goals a team of 6 partners, leaders in their field, originating from 4 EU-member states, will join efforts. OPTISOCHEM consists in showcasing the technical accessibility and economical sustainability of the value chains, from wheat straw to 2 different families of chemicals derived from bio-based IBN. These compounds, oligomers (DIB, TIB, TeIB) and polyisobutylenes (PIBs) are currently used in a wide range of applications such as lubricants, adhesives, sealants, flavors & fragrances and substituted phenols. This large market is today supplied entirely by products derived from fossil-based isobutene. Products derived from bio-based IBN, using the same process as fossil-based IBN, and with at least as good performances, would provide a renewable supply. OPTISOCHEM includes the development & up-scaling of bio-IBN production from wheat straw, followed by the production and validation at relevant scale -representative of commercial, established processes- of the bio-based derivatives. To this end, four ambitious objectives were defined: -Demonstrate the production of wheat straw hydrolysate (WSH) and establish a quality standard to feed the IBN fermentation unit, -Demonstrate the production of bio-IBN from WSH at pre-commercial scale, -Demonstrate the quality of end products obtained with bio-IBN as a feedstock and using traditional commercial processes designed for fossil based IBN, -Determine and validate the targeted technical, economic as well as environmental/social sustainability performances to be achieved for a commercial plant project. Related Work packages, tasks, milestones and risks are considered in order to achieve these objectives. OPTISOCHEM project is fully aligned with the call topic.