Final Report ACHEMA 2022

At ACHEMA 2022, the world's leading trade show for the process industry, over 2,200 exhibitors from more than 50 countries showcased the latest equipment and innovative processes for the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries at the Frankfurt fairgrounds from 22 to 26 August.

Exhibition Groups

The exhibition group "Pumps, Compressors, Valves and Fittings" comprised the most exhibitors at ACHEMA 2022, followed by "Pharmaceutical, Packaging and Storage Techniques" and " Instrumentation, Control and Automation Techniques". A new addition to the exhibition group is the “Digital Hub” as a central meeting place for digital experts and players in digitalization.

Internationality

After Germany (1,042 exhibitors), Italy (179 exhibitors) and India (143 exhibitors) showed the largest exhibitor participation. Despite existing travel restrictions, 74 exhibitors from China also took part in ACHEMA 2022. At 52.9 %, the foreign share on the exhibitor side remained at an unchanged high level.

Atmosphere

The products and technologies presented met with great interest from the audience: The stands in the halls were well attended and the fairgrounds were bustling with activity. "The need for personal exchange is huge after such a long time. The exhibitors we spoke to and we ourselves had a successful trade show, where we held numerous discussions with direct project or investment relevance," confirms Jürgen Nowicki, Chairman of the ACHEMA Committee and CEO of Linde Engineering.

Volker Huelsekopf, Head of Sales & Marketing, smartGAS, shares this impression: "The anticipation of the first ACHEMA in four years was worthwhile. After a long break, we were again able to reach many of our customers and interested visitors in personal discussions. This once again confirms ACHEMA's importance for us as the leading trade show for process measurement technology."

The three focal topics of ACHEMA 2022 also met with great interest. At the "Digital Lab", the smart laboratory of tomorrow could be experienced at the stands in the field of laboratory and analytical technology and at the associated action area.

Many new developments in the exhibition halls took up the focus topic "Modular and Connected Production": The trend towards designing production lines in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry with the greatest possible flexibility and fully networking them was reflected in numerous innovations on the stands in the different exhibition groups.

With "Product and Process Security", ACHEMA 2022 also took up the topic of digital security, which is becoming increasingly important for many companies in times of industry 4.0, networked production and in view of the high threat level posed by cyberattacks: Over 330 exhibitors presented their products and services on this topic, which also forms the link to the new "Digital Hub" exhibition group as a central meeting point for digital experts and players in digitalization.

“The best part of being at ACHEMA in person is promoting digitalization tools with hands-on demonstrations. This is much harder to do virtually than at ACHEMA, where we can meet with clients and partners to discuss specific solutions to their challenges”, emphasizes Helen Bartmann, project manager for digitalization projects at Actemium.

Attendees

ACHEMA 2022 was attended by 70,007 participants from 127 nations. Approximately every second attendee (46.4%) at the trade show came from abroad. “This year, I was curious how ACHEMA 2022 would develop with the pandemic and the current business situation, but we have been quite surprised and happy about today’s quantity and quality of visitors”, says Claus Weihermueller, Business Development & Project Pursuit at Flexim.

Congress

The ACHEMA Congress covered the entire spectrum of chemical process technology and biotechnology. The lectures provided insights into current research and development projects as well as the latest scientific results.

On each day of the trade show, particularly topical issues were dealt with in a separate theme day:

• Hydrogen Economy (Monday, 22 August)
• Fossil-free Production (Tuesday, 23 August)
• Perspectives in Laboratory and Analytics (Wednesday, 24 August)
• Digitalization in the Process Industry (Thursday, 25 August)
• Novel Bioprocesses and Technologies (Friday, 26 August).

Daily highlight sessions within the respective themes emphasized additional topics. In the congress programme, the hydrogen topic as well as lectures on sustainability, the circular economy and digitalization met with particularly great interest. "The dovetailing of congress and exhibition is a complete success: with more than 20,000 listeners, the attendance figures are significantly higher than at the last ACHEMA in 2018, which had more participants overall. And the feedback from congress attendees is also positive," says Dr Andreas Förster, Executive Director of DECHEMA e.V. "We will expand the concept with a view to the next ACHEMA."

Perspective

The next ACHEMA will take place in Frankfurt from 10 to 14 June 2024.