Research and development has been a vital element in developing the agile, collaborative and reliable business partnership model at Astec Life Sciences that customers have come to trust.

Synthesis Laboratories

For the synthesis and development of complex molecules

  • Sophisticated design of fume hood
  • Series of Jacket reactors to mimic plant conditions with a temperature range of -90ºC to +300ºC
  • Parallel synthesis for screening reactions
  • Dedicated block to handle high-pressure reactions in Auto-clave (up to 40 barg)
  • Dedicated fluorination labs to perform fluorination Chemistry
  • Different MOC reactors like Glass, Hastelloy, PTFE, etc.
  • Dedicated solvent storage facility

 

Analytical Laboratory

Highly sophisticated equipment for analytical method development and analysis

  • Laboratory with a dedicated section for Gas Chromatography to include equipment like a series of GCs (including headspace) and GCMS
  • Liquid Chromatography section to include various HPLCs (including preparative), UPLCs and LCMS
  • Wet Chemistry Laboratory to support all other analyses
  • Specialized equipment in the laboratory also include a Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOC) for quantification of organic content in effluent water samples and Ion Chromatography (IC) to quantify Cations and Anions

Process Safety Laboratory

Dedicated laboratory facility for the scientific evaluation of chemical reaction hazards

Specialized equipment in the Process Safety lab include

  • Reaction Calorimeter (RC1MX) – to Generate the process data like Heat of reaction, Rate of heat release, Accumulations, Reaction conversion/kinetics, Gas release and pressurization hazards, Criticality class, and safeguards required for reactions, etc.
  • Thermal Screening Unit (TSU) - to determine the thermal behaviour like decomposition temperature, and safe operating temperature
  • Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) -to determine the thermal behavior like energy release/absorbed, melting/crystallization temperature. This data is used for designing operating temperature, utility selection, process time cycles and controls for plant operations, etc.
  • Accelerated Rate Calorimetry (ARC) - to determine the process hazards under adiabatic conditions to mimic plant conditions
  • Advance Reactive System Screening Tool (ARSST) – to study the safe relief rate and vent characterization by using the relief sizing tools

Kilo and Flow Chemistry Laboratory

To perform scale-up studies and convert traditional batch process to continuous process using flow reactor.

Specialized equipment at Kilo labs include

  • Wiped Film Evaporator (WFE) combined with a Fractionating column to perform fractional distillation of thermally sensitive materials
  • Short Path Distillation Unit (SPDU) for distillation of thermally sensitive material at very low pressure
  • Batch distillation set up with a fractionating column of 20 theoretical stages for fractionation of close boiling components and to perform solvent recovery trials
  • Reaction set up from 2 L to 10 L to generate scale up data of mixing and exothermicity

Flow Chemistry Labs

  • Pinch tube reactors made of SS 316 and Hastelloy C-22: to provide higher radial mixing & better heat transfer coefficient
  • Vapour phase reactors – to do a wide range of chemistry to improve yields and reduce conversion time

Formulation Development Laboratory

To develop new formulations, generate chemistry data for registration and technology transfer

Equipment’s available to develop all types of formulations.

  • Dyno mill (Agitator bead mill), Homogenizers, Ultra-Shear Homogenizers, Air Jet Mill, Ribbon Blender/ Sigma Mixer/ Planetary Mixer, Extruder for WDG, Fluid Bed Dryer (FBD), Viscometer and Lab BOD incubator

In addition, our pilot plant facility offers a variety of reactors in volumes as small as 63 litres, and as large as 1,000 litres, along with a pressure reactor of 50 litres. The pilot plant also hosts centrifuges, an Agitated Nutch Filter Dryer (ANFD), driers, and distillation set-ups containing diverse packing materials and various theoretical plate numbers to study engineering details related to commercialisation.

With this infrastructure, we are ready to be a partner of choice for our customers, as their process and innovation needs evolve to meet future demand in the global chemicals industry.