Oct 2 2008
Corning Incorporated and DSM Pharma Chemicals announced publication of a joint paper at CPhI Worldwide 2008 in Frankfurt, Germany this week, describing a successful, commercially viable demonstration of Corning's microreactor technology for Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) production.
Working together, teams from the two companies demonstrated a reliable, industrial-scale operation of a hazardous nitration reaction under cGMP conditions, processing more than 25 metric tons of material in only four weeks. Corning’s microreactor technology demonstrated high reliability and quality, showing capability to handle 800 metric tons of process fluids per year, assuming 8,000 hours of continuous operation.
"Low-throughput microreactors and lab-on-a-chip type technologies have been around for many years, but for the first time we have been able to show how Corning’s unique microreactor technology can solve an existing problem by demonstrating efficient processing at an industrial scale with a difficult chemical reaction," says Dr. Gary Calabrese, vice president, Science and Technology, Corning Incorporated. "Effective mixing, heat transfer, corrosion resistance and other attributes of Corning’s technology provide a unique and powerful solution to this challenge and many other chemistries."
Corning’s proprietary microreactor processing technology is compact, adaptable and scalable, optimizing the cost of manufacturing and overall quality of high-value specialty, fine and pharmaceutical chemicals. This technology, paired with Corning’s design and engineering expertise, provides customers with a customized reactor solution to meet their unique chemistry needs.
"Through the outstanding effort of an intercompany team from Corning and DSM, a pilot production introducing a new technology for a challenging reaction could be realized in a remarkably short period of time," said Dr. Bernt Schober, new business development operations manager, DSM Pharma Chemicals. "The combination of Corning’s microreactor technology and DSM’s chemical expertise allowed us to carry out this pilot production in a safe and operationally effective way."