EKATO

Live Program

The new digital live event for the process industry

Register and meet us at the ACHEMA Pulse! This platform is open from May 31 to June 30, 2021. As premium exhibitor EKATO will be presenting a very complete and impressive program, including live streams, workshops, congress lectures and interesting live stage interviews and discussions, which all will take place during the Live Days (15-16 June). We are looking forward to meeting you at the ACHEMA Pulse. Let us exchange ideas about innovative solutions and get inspired!
Live Program (15-16 June) - Schedule and Information

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EKATO Program Overview at a glance

Download our ACHEMA Pulse 2021 program overview here (subject to changes):

09:00-09:30 | Pilot Units for Photochemical Reactions - The Bridge...

Pilot Units for Photochemical Reactions – The Bridge to Production

Reliable scale-up of a photochemical process from lab to production scale is only successful with suitable pilot photoreactors operated on intermediate scale. EKATO presents three benchmark pilot photoreactors (5-50L Volume) which cover a wide range of reactions, allowing sophisticated data collection for safe up-scaling of your process.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Dr. Konstantin Epp (EKATO RMT)

Advanced Polymer Recycling

In this seminar we will show how to transfer depolymerization processes from lab-scale
to industrial scale, with focus on current trends and developments in polymer recycling technology as well as possibilities for optimization of existing plants.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Dr. Bernd Nienhaus (EKATO RMT)

EKATO Circle of Competence – Process Plants

EKATO consults and accompanies its customers throughout the entire life cycle of its machine or plant. Starting with the initial idea, through trials and subsequent scale-up into the industrial mixing process, to the finalized turnkey process plant. After commissioning and start-up, EKATO supports its customers with a wide range of services, such as strategic management of spare and wear parts, service contracts, or the consulting on modernizing existing equipment.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Dr. Wolfgang Last (EKATO RMT)

Mechanical Design: EKATO Means Reliability

In this stream we will share our long-term experiences about how to achieve
highest reliability for industrial agitators with you. Furthermore, we will show how we do impeller selection and different options for materials of construction.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speakers: Sven Hanselmann, Dr. Bernd Nienhaus (EKATO RMT)

How to Translate Your Process Into Mixing Tasks

Everywhere, people from the process industry are looking for the best suited, most efficient agitators. At the same time quality requirements and product specifications are becoming more and more strict. What is special about EKATO is that we usually ask questions about the process before offering a robust, tailor-made mixing solution. This is done on the basis of a „translation“ of specific process requirements into mixing tasks like blending, suspending or dispersion. Our philosophy of work: Find the best mixing solutions for our clients!

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Dr. Bernd Nienhaus (EKATO RMT)

EKATO Pilot Plants for Safe Scale-up to Production Size

When developing new processes, specific information on the product behavior is required to design the production plant. The interaction of the chemistry, physical parameters and instrumental boundary conditions in complex processes is usually determined in pilot plants. In EKATO’s test center, a number of pilot plants are available for carrying out such investigations. We will give you an overview of the EKATO pilot plants for the design of
reactors e.g. for gas-liquid or photochemical reactions,
separation processes based on crystallizers and vacuum dryers and
finally the production of consumer products for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speakers: Marc Labusch (EKATO RMT), Alexander Lukas (EKATO SYSTEMS), Sebastian Prill (EKATO SYSTEMS)

Customized Engineered Solutions for Best Production Processes

Modern production planning is highly focused on optimization, efficiency and productivity. EKATO SYSTEMS GmbH supports in early project planning phases far beyond the supply of vacuum process plants. Based on batch time calculations, cleaning time determinations and the process related design of required utilities for different modes of operation, EKATO SYSTEMS identifies the optimal design for your process. Even without trials and based on more than 88 years of process experience and production data.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Sven Hanselmann (EKATO RMT)

Agitated Processes – From Lab to Production

To understand your process – and to derive the governing mixing tasks – is only the first step. This webinar deals with the most important design correlations for scale-up to commercial.
For some examples from all over process industry we will demonstrate efficient scale-up tools,
– experimental based, lab and pilot testing, how to select the right scale
– plus computer-based, CFD or FEA modeling and how to validate the results
The target: to serve our customers beyond their expectations!

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Sven Hanselmann (EKATO RMT)

EKATO Circle of Competence – Process Development

The development of efficient mixing processes is one of EKATO’s core competencies. Together with our customers we develop the optimal mixing solutions of tomorrow, with an excellent team of highly qualified engineers in process engineering, chemistry and mechanical engineering and based on decades of experience. In this stream we will invite for a walk through our R&D center and show you our experimental facilities.

Live Stream (Exhibitor Panel)

Speaker: Dr. Wolfgang Last (EKATO RMT)

09:00-09:30 | Your Processes are Developing- What About your Machines?

EKATO CEM – Your Processes are Developing- What About your Machines?

In a globalized world, improvement secures lead over competitors. Your processes and products continue to develop – we offer the right mixing technology. Existing systems and agitators can be checked and verified by us using new but also existing product parameters and process conditions. Process improvements and / or mechanical potentials can often be discovered, which we would like to show on a specific example.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Michael Seiter (EKATO RMT)

EKATO S-JET 5000; Profitable Large Scale Dispersing

The process of Scale-Up is an integral part when applying the knowledge gathered on laboratory or pilot plants to large production units. While in laboratory or pilot plants the small volumes can be homogenized within minutes, the homogenization time on large machines always extended a lot due to the low throughput of the homogenizers related to the vessel volume. The new developed S-JET can be installed at units up to 20.000 L batch volume, helping to improve the rentability of these systems by shortening the process times significantly. The S-JET 5000 guarantees the same input shear forces and therefore the same product specifications as all other S-JET homogenizers, resulting in the same product qualities no matter which unit size is used.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Fabian Lehmann (EKATO SYSTEMS)

EKATO WebLab for Online Trials

Remote support and services cannot only help to save costs and time in maintenance and commissioning, it also is a great tool that can be used with the same advantages in earlier stages like product and process development.
In this session we want to invite you to a live broadcast from our lab on how these new tools can be used. Apart from the broadcast from our Lab the remote support can be used on site for SATs or support during qualification and validation batches, for which we will show examples form the past months.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Sebastian Prill (EKATO SYSTEMS)

Agitators for Storage Tanks ES 2000 SW

EKATO is at the mix in terms of mobility, heat, petrochemicals, lubricants and bitumen. In oil storage tanks, EKATO relies on proven technology and can build on more than 85 years of experience. For mixing tasks like effective mixing of crude oil considering and controlling the sand and water content BS&W (bottom sludge and water), mixing of different crude oils, a constant temperature distribution in the tank or for the mixing of refined oils, EKATO provides the appropriate solutions.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Markus Kast (EKATO FLUID)

Preventing Solids Deposits with the EKATO ENDSFOIL

The EKATO ENDSFOIL is a new agitator for suspension applications, such as crystallization, where solid deposits must be prevented. The impeller is usually used as a bottom impeller in combination with an axial flow impeller but can also be used as a single stage up to filling heights of height/vessel diameter of 1. Due to the robust design and the installation close to the bottom, a good off bottom suspension even of larger agglomerates can be ensured without risk of damaging the agitator.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Andreas Enz (EKATO RMT)

Viscous Mixing with the EKATO PARASEG

The EKATO PARASEG is a new agitator for medium to high vicous mixing applications, including adhesives, polymerization, sealants, grease, creams and shear sensitive products. The impeller is commonly used in a multi-stage setup and operates with close to wall clearance. Its flexible set-up and impeller design offer several possibilities to fulfill a wide range of mixing tasks like quick homogenization, good heat transfer or quick incorporation of liquids or solids added from the surface.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Dr. Klaus Gezork (EKATO RMT)

EKATO Modular Hydrogenation Plants

The modularization of hydrogenation plants, especially for production plants on a small and medium scale, offers enormous future potential. On the one hand, producers gain the decisive competitive advantage in their market: The fastest possible start of production (“time-to-market”) after approval of a new substance. On the other hand, EKATO can combine the engineering, production and assembly of the skids under one roof. By bringing these activities together, EKATO makes optimal use of its skills and resources as a supplier of turnkey hydrogenation plants.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Peter Rojan (EKATO RMT)

EPOS (EKATO Process Operating System): The New Industry 4.0 Suitable Automation Platform from EKATO

EPOS provides an user-friendly and easy creation of recipes in Matrix and PFC mode and covers the application areas of pharmacy, chemistry and many other industries. Recipe creation is done only by configuration and completely without programming, according to category 4 of ISPE GAMP5 guideline. GMP projects according to GAMP 5 as well as FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliant projects can be created without further adjustments. Batch related process values are displayed in an EPOS standard report. Diagnostic and analysis functions have been included for maintenance planning (Preventive Maintenance)

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Tobias Fehrenbach (EKATO SYSTEMS)

Utilization of modern engineering tools for the design of industrial scale impellers

CFD simulations combined with 3D printing enable the fast and cost-effective development of impellers for industrial scale. EKATO presents in this session the whole development process of a new gas‑inducing impeller. Starting with the first idea and evaluation in CFD studies, followed up with fast prototyping due to 3D printing and finally the rigorous characterization on pilot scale after identifying the most promising geometry.

Live Stream (Premium Channel)

Speaker: Marc Labusch (EKATO RMT)

Thermal Management of Mechanical Seal Systems in Agitated High-Temperature Applications

The demands placed on the material of mechanical seals increase disproportionately in high-temperature applications. The selection of suitable materials is one major challenge, but not only! In particular a clever thermal management of the entire mechanical seal system is of utmost importance. A team of experts from taken on this challenge and developed special solutions for the thermal management of mechanical seal systems for agitators in high-temperature applications.

Live Stream (Exhibitor Panel)

Speaker: Bernd Reichert (EKATO RMT)


16:00-16:45 | "How to Find the Best-Suited Mixing Solution - Bring..

„How to Find the Best-Suited Mixing Solution – Bring Your Own process“

Advanced processes demand for advanced mixing solutions! Let’s challenge the EKATO mixing experts!
During this workshop the participants are invited to present special processes with special mixing challenges.
EKATO experts will discuss and analyze – whatever challenge our participants have in mind – and show an efficient way towards a suitable solution!

Workshop

Speakers: Michael Seiter (EKATO RMT), Dr. Bernd Nienhaus (EKATO RMT)

11:30-12:15 | Photochemical Reactors – How to Adopt Scalable..

Photochemical Reactors – How to Adopt Scalable Strategies from Lab to Production

Photochemical processes offer access to new realities, unique products and hard-to-copy market positions. However, the transfer of a photochemical process from the laboratory to the production scale requires well-founded, interdisciplinary knowledge and experience from chemistry, physics and engineering. EKATO and Peschl Ultraviolet GmbH have entered into a co-operation and have merged  their expertise and know-how to offer comprehensive and competent advice on all aspects of industrial-sized, stirred photoreactors.  In this workshop, EKATO and Peschl Ultraviolet will present and discuss with you their scale-up strategies as well as latest trends in photochemical reactor technology at the example of impelling case studies.

Workshop

Speakers: Peter Rojan (EKATO RMT), Alexander Peschl (Peschl UV)

„How to Find the Best-Suited Mixing Solution – Bring Your Own process“

Advanced processes demand for advanced mixing solutions! Let’s challenge the EKATO mixing experts!
During this workshop the participants are invited to present special processes with special mixing challenges.
EKATO experts will discuss and analyze – whatever challenge our participants have in mind – and show an efficient way towards a suitable solution!

Workshop

Speakers: tbd.


11:20-11:40 | Hydrogenation plants by EKATO - modular and fast

Hydrogenation Plants by EKATO – modular and fast

The modularization of hydrogenation plants, especially for production plants on a small and medium scale, offers enormous future potential. On the one hand, producers gain the decisive competitive advantage in their market: The fastest possible start of production (“time-to-market”) after approval of a new substance. On the other hand, companies like EKATO can combine the engineering, fabrication and assembly of the modules under one roof. By applying modular hydrogenation plant technology both, producer and EKATO, create a win-win-situation and make optimal use of their own skills and resources, co-operate more efficiently and gain competitive advantages in their markets.

Live Stage Interview

Speaker: Peter Rojan (EKATO RMT)

Winning together: Founding with technology support by EKATO

Optimization and transfer of early stage technologies from lab to commercial scale can be a substantial barrier for startups developing new chemicals and groundbreaking process technologies.
EKATO believes that collaboration with startups creates win-win-situations for both and is dedicated to jointly develop and optimize promising technologies applying mixing technology. Consequently, EKATO offers Joint Development Programs which grant startups access to EKATO’s propriety know-how in the field of mixing technology, its state-of the art pilot plant facilities and its engineering resources. All with the aim to pave the wave for new technologies to market and scale.

Live Stage Interview

Speaker: Peter Rojan (EKATO RMT)

10:00-11:00 | Closing the Loop with Chemical Recycling

Closing the Loop with Chemical Recycling 

Currently there is a lot of attention for the plastic waste problem. Besides collection and recycling of current polymers, also there is a strong increase in designing new circular polymers that are more easily recyclable or more biodegradable. One of the concepts that attracted much attention is the insertion of weak bonds in otherwise conventional polymers. For example the group of Mecking published the concept of insertion of a limited number of break points in polyethylene like polymers. Due to the limited number of these break points (carbonate or ester groups) the original properties of the polymer are largely retained, but the benefit of low temperature chemical recycling is now added and in this manner the building blocks, in the form of oligomers, can be recycled many times. Similarly, insertion of ester bonds has shown to facilitate biodegradation in sludge for some specific polymers like polymethylacrylate. In both cases the oligomer size distribution is of great importance. In the case of recycling, the sequence distribution of the break point and connected oligomer distribution is of importance for retaining the original properties as much as possible, the ease of isolating and purification of the oligomers and reconstitution of the circular polymer. In the case of biodegradability it has been shown that the biodegradability strongly depends on the molecular weight of the acrylate oligomers. In this presentation we show how polymer reaction engineering can facilitate even insertion of break points within and across the chains, efficiently using the additional functional monomers. Optimal monomer addition profiles can be predicted or a controlled composition reactor can be utilized. The influence on copolymer properties, oligomer characteristics and reconstitution back to the circular polymer will be discussed. References: 1 Häußler M., Eck, M., Rothauer, D., Mecking, S., Nature (2021) 590, 423–427. 2. Lena, J.-B.; Van Herk, A. M., Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (2019), 58 (46), 20923–20931. 3 Jackson, A. W.; Reddy Mothe, S.; Chennamaneni, L. R.; van Herk, A.; Thoniyot, P., Materials (2020), 13 (10), 2325. 4 Lena, J.-B.; Jackson, A. W.; Chennamaneni, L. R.; Wong, C. T.; Lim, F.; Andriani, Y.; Thoniyot, P.; Van Herk, A. M., Macromolecules (2020), 53 (10), 3994-4011.

Live Stage Highlight Session

Speakers:
Sander van Donk I Sulzer Chemtech
Prof. Alex von Herk I A*STAR
Dr. Andreas Kicherer I BASF
Dr. Bernd Nienhaus I EKATO RMT

Chemical Plastics Recycling – From Lab to Commercial

EKATO offers customized assistance to solve problems and optimise processing solutions for reactors applied in Chemical Plastic Recycle. Innovative ways to deal with post-consumer waste have been successfully developed, but many developers face the challenge to prove the potential of their processes in industrial scale. Furthermore, many technologies need to operate more economically and more robust in large-scale. EKATO contributes with expertise and know-how to achieve these milestones.

Live Stage Interview

Speaker: Dr. Bernd Nienhaus (EKATO RMT)

Trends in Mixing Technology

The life sciences have made great advances in the past years. Biology, life sciences and the megatrend of digitization are growing closer together, enabling new inventions that impact our daily lives in a scope that we speak of a Bio Revolution. This revolution is reinforced by rapid increases in computing power and the emergence of new capabilities in AI, automation, and data analytics. These trends are further accelerating the pace of innovation and the potential for higher R&D productivity in the life sciences.

In the panel discussion it will be discussed, how to put the currently available experimental and CFD methods systematically into practice for scale-up of chemical and biochemical industrial equipment as well as intensification of industrial production processes.

The discussion will focus on

  1. Progress in mixing simulations (multi-phase, complex rheological media)
  2. Advanced agitators (CFD-design and advanced manufacturing methods)
  3. Scale-up and Feedback from practical aapplication (Moving away from the concept of ggeometric scale-up towards process-related on aa molecular to macroscopic level)

Live Stage Panel Discussion

Speakers:
Dr. Joelle Aubin I University of Toulouse
Prof. Dr. Matthias Kraume I TU Berlin
Dr. Wolfgang Last I EKATO RMT
Prof. Dr. Giuseppina Montante I University of Bologna
Gul Ozcan-Taskin, PhD I University of  Loughborough
Dr. Joachim Ritter I Bayer AG

Moderator:
Martin Kloss

 


10:20-10:40 | A New Generation of Gas Inducing Impellers - 3D..

A New Generation of Gas Inducing Impellers – 3D Printing Enables Optimized Geometries for Industrial Agitators

Gas‑inducing impellers increase the utilization of pure gases during gas‑liquid or gas‑liquid‑solid multiphase type reactions. Due to the internal gas recirculation, an external loop is not required resulting in lower investment costs and reduced safety risks in case of hazardous gases. The design of gas‑inducing impellers is rather challenging, since multiple mixing tasks have to be taken into account during typical applications like hydrogenation (e.g. gas recirculation, gas‑liquid mass transfer, suspending solid catalyst particles and heat transfer). In order to deal with this high complexity, the geometrical design has to become more sophisticated. However, the design is limited by conventional manufacturing processes.
Hence, we present a new generation of 3D printed, gas‑inducing impellers, which are not limited in their geometric design, while using common metallic materials such as stainless steel 1.4404 or Inconel® IN718. First, the inner geometry of the gas‑inducing impellers is flow optimized to reduce pressure loss of the recirculated gas. Second, turbine‑like baffles underneath the impeller induce an axial liquid flow to ensure high gas‑liquid mixing at the gas orifices. Third, gas recirculation and gas‑liquid mass transfer are optimized regarding the specific power input by the complex baffle/blade design. These optimizations lead to a 60 % increased recirculated gas rate and an 80 % increased gas‑liquid mass transfer regarding the specific power input compared to an industrial benchmark. The improved performance strongly reduces batch cycle time leading to lower investment costs at similar operating costs. Due to 3D printing, new and complex impeller geometries can be manufactured, which can cover multiple mixing tasks.

Congress

Speaker: Marc Labusch (EKATO RMT)

10:40-11:00 | Additive Manufacturing in Mixing Technology

Additive Manufacturing in Mixing Technology

The term additive manufacturing refers to the depositing of material in layers. This process is popularly also known as 3D printing. There are now numerous processes with which, for example, plastics, ceramics or metals can be printed.Most of these processes have been used successfully in prototype construction for years. The question now arises as to how these processes can also be used in products in an industrial environment, for example in stirring and mixing technology. There are already a large number of examples being researched into printing complete pressure vessels or rotating equipment such as impellers. Due to this type of production new design options but also new questions occur, e.g. for certification of the components. In addition to the mechanical properties of the printed component and the optimal design for the application, components with optimized flow technology can also be manufactured. This allows mixing plants to be optimized even further in the future and to achieve an increase in efficiency through an optimally flow-optimized component shape. Another important aspect is the component size. Nowadays, depending on the process, this is no longer a limitation, but important criteria for the choice of the manufacturing method.
This presentation will try to give an insight into the topic using many examples.

Congress

Speaker: Jan Gassenschmidt (EKATO RMT)