At the end of the 30th ACHEMA, exhibitors and organizers were very pleased about the development of the world’s greatest exhibition for chemical engineering and biotechnology. Visitor and exhibitor numbers remained stable while the exhibition area increased by 2 % to 136,400 m².

3,773 exhibitors from 56 countries, around 50 % from abroad, presented to 167,000 visitor their products and services ranging from the chemical industry to the pharmaceutical branch, to the food industry, agriculture and biotechnology through to the energy sector and materials technology.

Opening Ceremony – Energy Turnaround and Chemical Industry

The ACHEMA 2012 began on the Sunday evening before the main exhibition opened with welcoming addresses by Dr. Hans Jürgen Wernicke, Chairman of DECHEMA e.V., Günther Oettinger, Commissioner for Energy, European Union, Dr. h.c. Petra Roth (below, left), Lord Mayor of the City of Frankfurt, as well as a lecture by Professor Ferdi Schüth (below, right), Director of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, and a panel discussion entitled ‘The Energy Turnaround and the Chemical Industry – Opportunity or Threat?’. See more: Snapshots from ACHEMA2012.

Professor Rainer Diercks, member of the Board DECHEMA e.V., gave a positive outlook for the chemical industry at the opening press conference. See more: Outlook for Chemical Industry.

Exhibition

The exhibition opened on the Monday morning. Of all the ACHEMA exhibition groups, two had impressive growth rates: “Instrumentation, Control and Automation Techniques” and “Pharmaceutical, Packaging and Storage Techniques”. The record total of over 1,000 exhibitors in the “Pumps, Compressors and Valves and Fittings” group made this the largest pump exhibition worldwide. For example, among these was the PFA lined magnetic driven sealless pump (below right).

The latest in mixing, heating, distilling and crushing applications was shown by IKA laboratory technology (2nd row, right), Staufen, Germany, to give just one example of the many exhibitors at ACHEMA 2012. For details on latest trends see the reports of the ACHEMA reporter.

 

The Wiley booth with its special football theme to tie in with the European soccer championship was a place where people could come and mingle, learn about latest publications, for example the 7th edition of Ullmanns, enter one of the competitions, or sign up for a ChemistryViews newsletter. There was also a cocktail happy hour each day that proved very popular.

The Wiley booth was also the starting point for process technology, chemistry and biotechnology students reporting on the latest trends on behalf of the journals CITplus and CHEManager. The editorial team (below) was very happy with their reports; read and review the ACHEMA reports. 

The Nachrichten aus der Chemie, the membership magazine of the German chemical society (GDCh; Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker), celebrated their 60th anniversary with a Blaue Blätter-themed cake and champagne for everyone.

Dr. Dana Demtröder (left), DECHEMA e.V., and Dr. Florian Ausfelder (right), Director of the Deutsche Bunsen-Gesellschaft (DPG) for Physical Chemistry, admire the Nachrichten cake. See more: Celebrating 60th Anniversary of Nachrichten aus der Chemie

At the VDI-GVC (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure – Gesellschaft Verfahrenstechnik und Chemieingenieurwesen; Association of German Engineers and Society for Chemical Engineering) booth, Dr. Ljuba Woppowa (center), CEO, takes the opportunity to exchange with students as well as editors (Dr. Barbara Böck (left), Editor-in-Chief, Chemical Engineering and Technology and Chemie Ingenieur Technik, and Dr. Vera Köster (right), Editor-in-Chief, ChemistryViews).

Congress

In addition to the exhibition, throughout the week there was the traditional Congress programme with over 900 lectures. The main focus of the congress was energy and bioeconomy. It was supplemented by numerous prestigious guest events, such as the expert round table ‘Automation Dialog’, jointly hosted by NAMUR, ZVEI (Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie e.V.), and ARC and the ‘International Powder and Nanotechnology Forum’ organised by the Japanese Powder Process Industry and Engineering Association.

On the first day of the congress, bioeconomy was the topic of a public panel discussion. The “Bioeconomy showcase” organized by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Agency for Renewable Resources FNR illustrated that the bioeconomy is not just an idea, but a tangible reality.

China and Aserbaidschan were other main topics of panel discussions. Dr. Utz Tillmann (below), Director General of the German chemical industry association (VCI; Verband der Chemischen Industrie), outlined the secrets of how Germany manages to maintain its continuing good position in the chemical industry. See more: German Industry Success.

Typical tasks, responsibilities, and requirements of a plant engineer were lively discussed with the audience of the “Information Platform for Engineers in Production” (Informationsplattform für Ingenieure in der Produktion), a VDI-GVC initiative. The forum was moderated by Professor Ralf Gödecke (below, middle), Consulting Process Technology, Rodenbach, and Sebastian Zeck (below, left), BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, both Germany. Among the speakers were Andreas Übelhör (below, right), Kelheim Fibres GmbH, T. Weber (2nd row, right), Wacker Chemie AG, Burghausen, and P. Rau (2nd row; left), Bayer CropScience AG, Frankfurt, all Germany.

Closing Colloquium

Professor Wolfram Koch (below), Executive Director of the GDCh, introduced and moderated the closing colloquium.

Here, Professor Martyn Poliakoff (right), University of Nottingham, UK, accepted the Wöhler Prize for Sustainable Chemistry from Professor Barbara Albert (left), GDCh President, on behalf of Professor Paul Anastas, Yale University, USA. See more: P. Anastas Awarded Wöhler Prize

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Also of interest:

• Interview: Thomas Scheuring on Organizing the ACHEMA Exhibition
  T. Scheuring, CEO of DECHEMA Ausstellungs-GmbH, talks about what DECHEMA’s reorganization means for the upcoming ACHEMA
• Snapshots from ACHEMA 2012
  Views from the largest technology summit for chemical engineering, environmental protection and biotechnology
• Clever Picture: ACHEMA: Past and Present
  ACHEMA is a trend-setting technology summit for process engineering and biotechnology which attracts around 180,000 participants
• German Chemistry Success
  Success secrets of the continually good position of German chemistry in international competition
• Outlook for Chemical Industry
  Prof. Dr. R. Diercks, member of the Board DECHEMA e.V., gives a positive outlook for the chemical industry at the ACHEMA
• ACHEMA Reporter
  Students talk to the ACHEMA exhibitors for the most interesting news on behalf of Wiley-VCH journals
• Event: ACHEMA 2012
  World forum of the process industry and the trend-setting technology summit for chemical engineering, environmental protection and biotechnology