Computational molecular engineering as an emerging technology in process engineering

The present level of development of molecular force field methods is assessed from the point of view of simulation-based engineering, outlining the immediate perspective for further development and highlighting the newly emerging discipline of Computational Molecular Engineering (CME) which makes basic research in soft matter physics fruitful for industrial applications. Within the coming decade, major breakthroughs can be reached if a research focus is placed on processes at interfaces, combining aspects where an increase in the accessible length and time scales due to massively parallel high-performance computing will lead to particularly significant improvements.