Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), providers of the world-leading gPROMS advanced process modelling platform and related ModelCare services, will host the inaugural 2012 Advanced Process Modelling Forum in London on 18 and 19 April.
The forum is a key event for process industry companies focused on creating sustainable value through the application of high-accuracy predictive modelling. It is aimed at senior business and technology decision makers in process industries such as pharmaceuticals, oil & gas, power generation, chemicals, petrochemicals, food and minerals & mining.
Organiser Mark Matzopoulos, PSE´s COO, says "advanced process modelling is about using predictive models to explore the design space rapidly, reduce uncertainty and make better, faster and safer decisions. Traditionally this has been the preserve of the large-scale process industries, but we have a very strong Life Sciences element at the Forum, with Pfizer, GSK and Eli Lilly presenting. Expect some exciting announcements in this area." Pharma companies are adopting the technology rapidly to accelerate value creation, in particular by facilitating the move from batch to continuous processing and optimising solids process design and operation.
The two keynote speakers will be Jan van Schijndel, Manager of XTL Development at Shell, and Ravi Shanker, Senior Research Fellow at Pfizer. Van Schijndel will describe how Shell is developing model-based synthesis tools to support development of the next generation of Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) plants, based on experience from the huge Pearl development in Qatar. Shanker´s focus will be Systems-based Pharmaceutics, a revolutionary model-based approach for optimising drug manufacturing by taking a holistic view that encompasses both biological effects in the human body and drug process and product engineering.
GSK, Eli Lilly, SABIC, SASOL, Süd-Chemie and Sulzer Chemtech will also be presenting, as will research organisations TNO, Rutgers University and Imperial College London, and the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). Presentations will cover the application of model-based techniques to enhance process design and scale-up, optimise operations, accelerate process innovation and manage new technology risk, with a focus on laboratory-to-industrial-plant workflows for large-scale new process development.
Other highlights include presentations on the ETI´s investment in a system-wide modelling tool-kit to accelerate and de-risk the development of carbon capture & storage (CCS) in the UK, and on recent developments in SAFT advanced thermodynamics techniques that makes it possible to achieve unprecedented accuracy in thermodynamic predictions with little or no data.
Prof. Costas Pantelides, MD of PSE says "The diversity and scale of applications that generate real value show that advanced process modelling is becoming a key technology for process industry innovators. We believe that this will drive a step change in value creation across all process sectors, which should capture the attention not only of practitioners but also operating executives with P&L responsibility."
