Phytoextracts and Plant Made Pharmaceuticals

Phytoextracts are pure substances or mixtures with high added value that are primarily used as medicinal substances, aromas, flavors or agrochemicals. The design of the manufacturing processes is currently generally empirical. Standard extracts are produced that have not undergone any process engineering optimization methods in terms of yield and purity. In addition, plant-made pharmaceuticals offer the opportunity to produce large quantities of complex molecules as regenerative raw materials at low cost using plants.

For this reason, this research focus area is developing novel, efficient design methods for the development of separation processes for phytoextracts and plant-made pharmaceuticals. The influencing variables for efficient solids extraction are quantified by developing mini-plant systems for model parameter determination and modeling of the phenomena and their implementation in equipment concepts, and solids extraction is integrated into the overall process of substance separation.