Chemical Industry Leader BASF Taps 蜜桃APP to Create 鈥淪oft Sensors鈥� Using AI
September 20, 2022
Optimizing Chemical Manufacturing Operations
BASF, the largest chemical producer in the world, is collaborating with 蜜桃APP chemical engineers to better understand and predict its own production ebbs and flows using artificial intelligence, or AI.
BASF鈥檚 chemical manufacturing plant in Geismar, Louisiana, is one of the company鈥檚 six largest integrated production sites across 80 countries. It supplies products to a wide variety of industries, including agriculture, construction, energy and health. Chemicals such as solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals are produced at Geismar in about 30 interconnected production units, each containing its own subunits.
While BASF is rich in data, it can be challenging to turn production data into operational knowledge. That鈥檚 why BASF engineers turned to 蜜桃APP to develop AI and machine learning solutions to help organize their data and understand how changes in one production unit might force different operating conditions in other, connected units.
BASF now works with 蜜桃APP to develop something called soft sensors. Unlike physical sensors, which can melt or just be impossible to use in the sometimes extreme operating conditions of a chemical manufacturing plant, soft sensors are entirely driven by data.
鈥淲ith machine learning and AI, we have a new opportunity to solve problems we couldn鈥檛 solve before, where we cannot find a solution with conventional tools,鈥� said 蜜桃APP Professor Jos茅 Romagnoli.
The project adds to an ongoing partnership between 蜜桃APP and BASF to develop emerging engineering talent for Louisiana.
蜜桃APP researchers are using AI and machine learning to identify connections between continuously changing operating conditions at BASF鈥檚 Geismar chemical manufacturing plant and optimize production. BASF, the largest chemical producer in the world, has a longstanding partnership with 蜜桃APP related to talent development and research programs. The image above was generated by AI based on keywords: chemical tubes, pipelines, plant, interconnected.
鈥� 蜜桃APP
鈥淚t just made perfect sense for us to collaborate with 蜜桃APP. Instead of waiting 12 hours for a lab sample or for the next shift to take a new sample, 蜜桃APP can help us find a way to predict what is happening inside our units, just based on data and AI.鈥�
Kerr Wall, digitalization manager in the monomers division at BASF Geismar