Modular plants using intensified continuous processes represent an appealing concept for the production of pharmaceuticals. It can improve quality, safety, sustainability, and profitability compared to batch processes; besides, it enables plug-and-produce / reconfiguration for fast product changes. To facilitate this flexibility by real-time quality control, we developed a solution that can be adapted quickly to new processes and is based on a compact nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer. The NMR sensor is a benchtop device enhanced to the requirements of automated chemical production including robust evaluation of sensor data. Beyond monitoring the product quality, online NMR data was used in a new iterative optimization approach to maximize the plant profit and served as a reliable reference for the calibration of a near-infrared (NIR) spectrometer. The overall approach was demonstrated on a commercial-scale pilot plant using a metal-organic reaction with pharmaceutical relevance.

• Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM)
• Berlin University of Technology
• Dortmund University of Technology, INVITE GmbH, Bayer AG

• PAT
• API

1. API
2. Continuous processes
3. NIR spectroscopy
4. NMR Spectroscopy
5. pat
6. Real-time process monitoring
7. Real-time quality control
8. Research Article