The supply swings of emerging and traditional energy sources have a drastic impact on the profitability of energy producers. This unpredictability makes decision-making and planning hazardous activities. Tightening environmental restrictions force the discovery of innovations in processes, and this can test the cost-effectiveness of traditional materials. The narrow profit margins mean that the downtime required to maintain or improve equipment is at a premium. The conversion of renewable energy into gas offers an environmentally friendly, yet non-traditional, manufacturing process which requires research.

Total wanted a reactor system to carry out research on catalysis that would meet robust safety standards and participate in their thorough HAZOPs studies. It needed to be able to work in a fully automated way at a high throughput and synthesise a variety of polymers. The unit had to operate with moisture and air sensitive catalysts and has the unique ability to reduce the inertisation and cleaning time to essentially zero.