Chemical Technology
Article | June 6, 2022
Individual consumers expect tailored products and services. Color, size, quantity, payment method, and delivery channel options abound. The chemical sector is also now following this suit of action. The global chemicals supply chain has grown steadily for three decades. Chemical businesses are improving their supply chain capabilities to handle complexity and meet client demands. This includes implementing advanced data-driven and cloud-based technologies that enable faster, more flexible, and tailored customer interactions.
Areas of innovation for chemical companies
Living Segmentation
Living segmentation can help chemical businesses better serve clients and satisfy their expectations. This entails adapting supply chain capabilities to each customer's needs.
Asset-light Network
An asset-light network involves developing an ecosystem of partners to add capabilities and value to your supply chain beyond standard co-manufacturing, co-packing, and third-party or last-mile logistics providers. In addition, it should include technology partners that help chemical businesses innovate and be adaptable.
Data and Applied Intelligence
Improving speed, agility, and efficiency in global supply chains demands comprehensive visibility and the correct information. Data provides visibility and insights. The key to providing excellent customer service is gathering the appropriate data and using it strategically to get important insight. The industry generates a ton of data, which is excellent news.
In response to last year's supply chain delays, corporations are building supply chains with geographically spread shipping/supplier choices. Real-time visibility and enhanced analytics can be used to track delays by providing revised ETAs and analyzing downstream implications. Data-driven insights can alert organizations of a delay almost immediately and help them acquire raw materials from another supplier to reduce the domino impact downstream. Chemical businesses must rethink their supply chains to implement living segmentation, asset-light networks, data, and AI.
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Chemical Management
Article | July 14, 2022
Global IoT in Chemical market research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends. It allows you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The IoT in Chemical industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the game-changing strategic analysis of the key factors driving the market. The report includes the forecasts by 2020-2028, analysis by 2014-2019, and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share predictions and profiles of the top IoT in Chemical industry players.
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Chemical Management
Article | July 8, 2022
SOMEHOW, despite the still very serious container freight shortages that have limited imports, buying sentiment seems to have weakened in the European polyolefins market, according to my outstanding ICIS colleague, Linda Naylor.
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Chemical Technology
Article | June 6, 2022
An enzyme-mimicking catalyst opens a new route to important organic molecules such as glycolic acid and amino acids from pyruvate, report researchers in Japan. Moreover, the new catalyst is cheaper, more stable, safer and more environmentally friendly than conventional metal catalysts used in industry, they note, adding that it also displays the high enantioselectivity required by the pharmaceutical industry.
“On top of these advantages, our newly developed organic catalyst system also promotes reactions using pyruvate that aren’t easily achievable using metal catalysts,” says Santanu Mondal, a PhD candidate in the chemistry and chemical bioengineering unit at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University, Okinawa, Japan, and lead author of a study recently published in Organic Letters.
“Organic catalysts, in particular, are set to revolutionize the industry and make chemistry more sustainable,” he stresses.
The researchers use an acid and an amine mixture to force the pyruvate to act as an electron donor rather than its usual role as an electron receiver (Figure 1).
Effectively mimicking how enzymes work, the amine binds to the pyruvate to make an intermediate molecule. The organic acid then covers up part of the intermediate molecule while leaving another part that can donate electrons free to react to form a new product.
Currently, the organic catalyst system only works when reacting pyruvate with a specific class of organic molecule called cyclic imines.
So, the researchers now are looking to develop a more-universal catalyst, i.e., one that can speed up reactions between pyruvate and a broad range of organic molecules.
The challenge here is to try to make the electron-donating intermediate stage of pyruvate react with other functional groups such as aldehydes and ketones. However, different catalysts create different intermediates, all with different properties. For example, the enamine intermediate created by the researchers’ new reaction only reacts with cyclic imines. Their hypothesis, currently being investigated, is that creation of other intermediates such as an enolate, if possible, would achieve a broader pyruvate reactivity.
In terms of cost, the researchers note that a palladium catalyst used in similar reactions is 25 times more expensive than their organic acid — which also is made from eco-friendly quinine.
In addition, they believe scale-up of the process for industrial use definitely is possible. However, the researchers caution that the current amine-to-acid-catalyst loading ratio of 1:2 probably would need to be optimized for better results at a larger scale.
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