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There has been a spate of stories in recent months spreading fear of shortages of major chemical feedstocks. But how accurate are they? Fake news? Click Bait? A growing trend? Or simply a part of the natural economic cycle of supply and demand?

One of the most popular stories is the increased demand (and slow increase in supply) of cobalt, a metal used in modern batteries.

Cobalt Shortages

As the BBC reported in June 2018, companies searching for Cobalt deposits were causing a new form of gold rush. The report noting that, “In the past, cobalt supply depended on the markets for copper and nickel, more valuable metals that are typically extracted alongside cobalt. But with cobalt prices on the up and consumption projected to rise by between 8% to 10% a year, its status as a by-product has started to change.”

Chemical procurement officers will note, of course, that this story has been running for some time.

As demand for portable electronics has grown, so has demand for raw materials for batteries. At the same time, electric cars are on the verge of impacting the automobile industry, upping the pressure to source raw materials.

As such, the ‘Cobalt Shortage’ is less of a shock, but more of a long-term trend, well known among chemical industry suppliers. For example, even a year ago, in 2017, a different BBC report asked ‘Could you Cope with Smartphone Rationing?’, stating that, “[Cobalt] has become a crucial metal used in the batteries powering millions of tech gadgets, including the electric cars made by Tesla and others. The problem is, we can’t get enough of it.”

So, the news of supply shortages is in fact not news at all.

Carbon Dioxide Shortages

Another recent popular story was the carbon dioxide shortage that hit the UK a few months ago. Fortunately for the media, the shortage was timed with the FIFA World Cup and a hot summer spell that gave added fear of insufficient gas to give beer its bubble.

As the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported at the time, “Britain’s carbon dioxide shortage has been caused by an unusually high number of closures of the factories which produce the gas as a by-product of the fertiliser industry.

The process of manufacturing ammonia releases vast amounts of CO2, which is captured and sold commercially and on which the food and drinks industry depends. But because farmers need little fertiliser over the summer, ammonia plants often close down for essential maintenance, and the current crisis has been caused by too many plants shutting at the same time across Europe.”

Fortunately, England only made it as far as the World Cup semi-finals, and so there were no major crowd disturbances over the lack of fizz in consumers’ beer.

Research Chemicals Shortages

Another raw material challenge that rises occasionally is the demand for research chemicals.

While the search for a few grams of a chemical product may seem as insignificant as the amount of product, the rarity and obscurity of the chemicals required can make this a common supply problem, and one that requires

As one research chemist explained on the scientific website ChemistryWorld, when he told of the time when he, “… was working at an industrial R&D centre, where dozens of HPLC instruments were using litres of acetonitrile and water, when stocks of acetonitrile began to dwindle.”

At the same time, he describes how, “A hurricane in Texas then resulted in the shutdown of another manufacturing plant, kicking off a dramatic shortage of acetonitrile around the country and prices skyrocketed. In some cases, there was no acetonitrile available, no matter the price offered.”

Fortunately, the author tells how, “Heroically, the analytical manager developed a completely new set of HPLC conditions that used methanol and water. This won him praise and recognition – and allowed the data from those crucial instruments to flow unchecked.”

What is interesting in the anecdote, is the desperation in the author’s tone. Even though the event happened more than a decade ago and was resolved on time, the importance of just a few grams of acetonitrile is still felt. And the colleague who solved the problem (this time with a substitute substance and method) is labelled a hero!

The Emotion of Chemical Raw Material Sourcing

I think we can all sympathise with the drama in these situations. The BBC listener hearing that their mobile phone might be rationed, a hot and thirsty football fan being denied a glass of beer, or a research chemist having his experiments stopped, all were waiting on a delayed or limited supply of chemicals with a sense of helplessness and fear.

However, these levels of helplessness and fear are multiplied when there are delays or supply shortages for industrial chemical products. The stress, the panic, the desperate calling of old contacts to find anyone who can provide the necessary chemicals on time is a terrible train of emotion

So, what then for the raw material procurement officer, who is waiting for a delayed supply of a chemical or production will stop?

A Solution for Chemical Raw Material Sourcing

Today, beyond picking up the phone to search for replacement industrial chemical sources with old contacts, we have the Internet. A chemical purchaser’s dream that can make sourcing chemicals like shopping on Amazon.

But while Alibaba, ChemIndia, and other online trading websites offer a whirlwind blur of offers from far flung corners of the world, perhaps what is truly needed is a longer term trading portal for industrial chemical professionals.

At SPOTCHEMI, (who host this blog page) chemical companies provide offers to sell, can make enquiries to buy, can request information, specifications, and data sheets on any industrial chemical, can join forum discussions on chemical industry trends and challenges, promote their companies or chemical products, and can network with like-minded chemical industry professionals.

No one can totally avoid the emotion of industrial raw material supply chains, there are simply too many factors. But there is a way to smooth the ride!

 You can read more insights into the chemical industry and chemical industry markets at the SPOTCHEMI blog page.

Photo credit: Freeimages

Buzzwords and business go hand in hand.

But don’t worry if this isn’t your field of expertise, because the ‘Dilbert Gobbledygook Generator’ is on hand to help. At the click of a button it creates phrases such as ‘Refigure real-time bottom line metrics’, ‘Implement end-to-end scalable interface’, and ‘Optimize efficient client models’, so you can impress colleagues at your next meeting.

Dilbert, the infamous cartoon businessman, is well-known for his love of buzzwords, as one of his comic strips from 1994 reads:

Colleague to Dilbert: Here’s your “Buzzword Bingo” card for the meeting. If the boss uses a buzzword on your card, you check it off. The objective is to fill the card.
Boss at meeting: You’re all very attentive today. My proactive leadership must be working
Dilbert: Bingo, Sir.

Love them or hate them, business buzzwords will always be here, and nowhere more so than the chemicals business. So, whether you are into ‘blue skies thinking’ or ‘corporate synergy’, here are the top 5 chemical industry buzzwords.

1. Sustainability

Modern industry understands that nothing lasts forever: unless of course it is a sustainable source of raw materials. As the chemical industry increasingly strives to take a stand in the ‘circular economy’ the use of the word ‘sustainability’ will long remain in the chemical supplier’s lexicon.
In fact, you can’t overuse the buzzword ‘sustainable’. Which is quite poetic, really.

2. Innovation

The concept of ‘innovation’ is simply ‘using your brain to improve something’.

Whether you believe in the words of Isaac Newton who described his theories as a result of ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ or the lyrics of the band Barenaked Ladies ‘It’s all been done before’, every new idea is based on earlier thinking.

Naturally, there is no progress or business development without ‘innovation’, which is why every ‘wanna be’ chemical industry executive should keep this word as part of their ‘core-competency’.

3. Big Data Analytics

The idea of using a computer (or a linked ‘cloud’ of multiple computers) to improve efficiency makes clear sense. If the computer can analyse data quicker than the human mind, then it is logical that many computers can analyse huge amounts of data; identifying and fixing problems that the human brain cannot even see.

The use of computers to analyse how chemical products are manufactured, traded, transported, and used simply saves money.

4. Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 works hand-in-hand with data analytics and is set to transform the way that we work, in the same way that the first three industrial revolutions changed everything.

Industry 1.0 Deciding to have industry in factories, not cottage industries.
Industry 2.0 Henry Ford’s production line.
Industry 3.0 Robotic production line (think Japanese automobile industry in the 1970’s).
Industry 4.0 Computers analyse huge amounts of data to streamline business.

However, it is worth pointing out here that the existence of ‘Industry 4.0’ is doubted by some. For example, the respected, and published chemical process engineer, Sean Moran, has questioned, “Is there really a fourth industrial revolution going on? If so, these four revolutions were powered by respectively: water (and later steam), electricity, digital technologies and hot air. #Industry4 #spin #meaninglessterm”

You can make your own mind up.

5. Digitalization

This phrase is very much linked to ‘Big Data’. As the chemical industry consultants at McKinsey note, “Companies can use advanced analytics to extract management-relevant information from the large amounts of unstructured data that they generate.”

While like other buzzwords it may be labelled as a #meaninglessterm, no one can deny the impact that computers have had on our world. And surely it would be crazy to deny the impact that they have on the chemical industry; both its present and its future.

What’s the Purpose of Chemical Industry Buzzwords?

Some buzzwords are just a trendy way of saying something. Why say, ‘That is correct,’ when the phrase ‘Bingo’ may sound much more ‘hip’ in a business meeting?

This is often why English business words are used in non-native English-speaking offices, as they sound linguistically educated and well-informed. For example, in the Czech Republic, the words ‘mitink’, ‘byznys’ and ‘home office’ are everyday words for ‘meeting’, ‘business’, and ‘working from home’.

However, the words in this list are more helpful because they describe a concept that is new. They are a useful to explain a business idea more simply. For example, it is far easier for a chemical supplier to request ‘sustainable raw materials’, than to request ‘raw materials that conserve an ecological balance by avoiding the depletion of natural resources’.

So, ‘Yes’, the chemical industry has buzzwords, but with good reason. The chemical industry has buzzwords because those words are relevant.

You can read more insights into the chemical industry and chemical industry markets at the SPOTCHEMI blog page.

Photo credits: Dilbert, StareCat, MMAWeb, Surrender.biz, & SoftwareStrategiesBlog

Chemical safety is a topic never far from public perception. While plastic waste is currently the biggest evil in the headlines of newspapers and social media, a newly published report highlighting the increasing concern of the scientific community over chemical mixtures is likely to bring public attention, once again, to the risks of chemical exposure.

The study is a collaboration between Andreas Kortenkamp from Brunel University in the UK and Michael Faust of Faust & Backhaus Environmental Consulting, and focuses on opinion among research chemists and chemical legislators.

Called ‘Regulate to Reduce Chemical Mixture Risk’ the analysis has now been published in the journal Science, where it notes that, “Until about a decade ago, toxicologists, risk assessors, and regulators regarded risks from chemical mixtures as negligible, as long as exposures to all single chemicals in the cocktail were below the levels judged to be safe for each chemical alone. However, an increasing body of scientific evidence has challenged this notion, showing that a neglect of mixture effects can cause chemical risks to be underestimated.”

As understanding grows of how a cocktail of chemicals can cause greater damage than the sum of their parts, regulators are beginning to consider further restrictions on the chemical industry.

As the report notes, “International bodies such as the World Health Organization now acknowledge the need for considering mixtures in chemical risk assessment and regulation. This would align toxicological risk assessment with the clinical sciences and their long tradition of investigating drug-drug interactions.”

While this may be a source of major concern for many chemical manufacturers, there is a wave of thinking that suggests that chemical safety doesn’t have to be expensive or even an added cost. Instead, innovation can make chemical safety profitable.

Innovation can make Chemical Safety Profitable.

Much of this theory is based on the idea of chemical substitution; finding innovative ways to replace toxic chemicals for safer ones. However, to do this, it is important to understand how chemical products will be mixed, used, and even disposed of.

This is an idea that has been taken up by the European Chemical Agency, and was outlined in January in a report called, the ‘ECHA’s Substitution Strategy’.

The report emphasises the importance of communication for all actors along the chemical industry supply chain. For example, that chemical raw material suppliers need to inform chemical processors of their sources, chemical end users need to inform manufacturers of their product uses, chemical producers must explain their ingredients, and so on.

As it states, “Substitution contributes to the overarching EU objectives for a non-toxic environment and a circular economy, wherein innovation and sustainable production and consumption are key elements.” Adding that, “The overall purpose of ECHA’s substitution strategy is to support informed and meaningful substitution of chemicals of concern in the EU and to boost the availability and adoption of safer alternative substances and technologies.”

To Support Informed and Meaningful Substitution of Chemicals of Concern.

The report also discusses the problems of the current chemical supply chain status quo, observing that, “On the one hand, substance-level technical knowledge is often greater among upstream manufacturers and formulators of chemicals than it is among downstream users and product manufacturers. In addition, downstream users often have much less technical knowledge about the hazard profile of specific substances. On the other hand, downstream users are likely to know the different technological possibilities to innovate and substitute the hazardous chemicals. They also have the possibility to work with their clients, who might not use the chemical but rather buy and use the articles produced by the downstream users.”

The strategy continues by noting that greater cooperation between chemical consumers and chemical suppliers can aid safety. It recommends that, “Specifications made by clients can help or hinder technical progress and innovation to substitute towards less hazardous chemicals. Similarly, final consumers (either directly or through consumer organisations) can drive demand for less hazardous products.”

The importance of this strategy was highlighted by Dr Matti Vainio, Head of the Risk Management Implementation Unit at ECHA, in a recent interview, when he said, “Substitution to safer chemicals needs to be an integral part of the research and innovation work of companies.” Adding that, “ECHA is willing to play its role in making this happen.”

Vainio is due to discuss the ECHA vision of greater communication and substitution at CIEX 2018 being held in Frankfurt on September 19^th and 20^th. The event has been created for R&D and innovation experts from the consumer, industrial and specialty chemical sectors, and is a unique platform for participants to learn, exchange ideas, and collaborate.

As Vainio notes, “In our CIEX discussions we should be able to see how innovation could be better targeted towards the use of safe chemicals, for example, with coordinated funding of research.” Adding that his talk will let attendees not only understand “… what ECHA is trying to achieve with its stakeholders by innovating to replace harmful chemicals, but also to exchange ideas on how to make money when doing so.”

Legislators are influenced by public opinion, so it is vital that the chemical industry remains proactive in prioritising safety.

The public will always be worried about toxic chemical exposure, be it through poisonous nerve agent attacks, BPA risks, or the dangers of household cleaning products. But if the scientific community is also starting to have concerns, then it is necessary for the chemical industry to react accordingly. Not defensively, with fear over the increased costs that restrictive legislation may bring, but with the understanding that the correct chemical product strategy can create a ‘win-win’ situation.

Can safer chemicals be profitable? With innovation and cooperation, then the answer is ‘Yes’.

Photo credit: MSDSOnline, OHSA, ECHA, ShareIcon, CommonsWikimedia, Iconsdb, SmileySymbol, emoji, vivilaparrochia, & Science.