Enabling technologies in drug synthesis and processing

16 Apr

Giancarlo Cravotto (1 CFU), Maela Manzoli (2 CFU), Silvia Tabasso (1 CFU), Università di Torino
EMAIL: giancarlo.cravotto@unito.it, maela.manzoli@unito.it

Course timetable 2024: from May 6 to May 22 (Monday, Wednesday, Friday)

In view of the very high environmental factor (25 to 100) of the production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, new strategies are being introduced. The formative path of this course leads to the ability to understand and design more sustainable environmentally friendly processes, starting from lab scale to pilot scale and industrial plants. A range of process intensification technologies for industrial applications will be described and discussed: synthetic processes, extraction and catalytic processes assisted by non-conventional technologies (ultrasound, microwaves, ball mills, continuous-flow reactors, reactive extruders, pulsed electric fields, LED and plasma units). In addition, new hybrid reactors combining different technologies will be presented.
The critical parameters for transferring the process from the laboratory to the industrial plant will be discussed according to the SELECT rules (Safety, Environmental, Legal, Economic, Control, Throughput). At the end of the course, students should be able to recognise the potential and applicability of different technologies in a given production context. A selection of case studies will be presented.

1) Green metrics and LCA of pharmaceutical processes (3 hours) Maela Manzoli;
2) Focus on Pharmaceutical Industry: state-of-the-art and current trends (3 hours) Giancarlo Cravotto;
3) Making the puzzle in heterogeneous catalysis: how to define structure activity
relationships? (3 hours) Maela Manzoli;
4) Process Intensification for Chemical Industries (3 hours) Silvia Tabasso;
5) Alternative energy sources for chemical reactions and processes (3 hours) Silvia Tabasso;
6) Catalysis + enabling technologies: what is expected? (3 hours) Maela Manzoli;
7) Catalytic process design to produce API. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Current Trends and What’s Next (3 hours) Maela Manzoli;
8) Industrial pharmaceutical production and downstream, scaling-up of innovative processes.
Closing remarks (3 hours) Giancarlo Cravotto.