Research project
Flexichem
- Start date: 1 January 2022
- End date: 31 December 2025
- Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
- Principal investigator: Professor Richard Bourne (School of Chemistry, University of Leeds)
- Co-investigators: Dr Richard Hodgett (Leeds University Business School) and Professor Natalie Faye (School of Chemistry, University of Bristol)
- Postgraduate students: Steve Shillitoe (Leeds University Business School)
Description
This project aims to create an artificial intelligence system that will self-optimise chemical manufacturing to flexibly adapt to variation in external factors (e.g. supply chain issues, cost, environment) by utilising chemical molecular property maps to suggest alternative suitable reagents, catalysts, and solvents.
Our role in this project is to develop a decision support system that can handle both the technical chemical manufacturing information, as well as business data and KPIs.
The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (reference EP/V050990/1).