Conclusions

We have seen that the chemical and related industries are facing a number of challenges in the context of market globalization and sustainable development, with an urgent demand for technological innovation, particularly through research into advanced processes and technologies.

For process-driven industries such as basic chemicals and chemical intermediates, petrochemicals, bitumen, iron and steel, glass, paper, textiles and, more generally, energy and environmental industries, it is necessary to pursue research into process intensification to obtain innovative, non-polluting, perfectly safe processes producing zero-defect products.

For future process industries producing specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals and highly specialized materials, dominated by the synthesis and control of a usage property, the technologies being developed concern...