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Chemical engineers are interested in processes. Businessmen are interested in products. Somewhere along the line, both of these demands must be met if the project of developing a new chemical is to be successful (and profitable).

Chemical engineers, (generally being a brainy and analytical bunch of people) like to have a system for how they are going to create a process. So it is not surprising that there has been a great deal of thought and discussion on this matter over the years, with the great and the good of the chemistry world passing on advice on the best methodology.

Over time, this methodology has been changed, other times merely restated. Sometimes the process is recommended as a long list of things to consider, sometimes that list is short, but the premise for the development of a new chemical generally remains the same the world over.

As David Mody of Queen’s University in Ontario, states, perhaps most succinctly, “Design in its most simplistic viewpoint is composed of the following steps:

1. Determine the problem and its constraints
2. Generate potential solutions
3. Develop sufficient detail that solutions can be compared and eliminated
4. Implement the preferred solution”

But however clear and simple the scientific method, the process is quickly clouded by the introduction of the businessman. Much as the German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke noted that, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”

For while the chemist may have a clear idea of the possible, the businessman may have ideas based more on a wish list of factors. Both of them should keep in mind the practicalities of their end product.

As much of the practicalities of the end product are based in the raw materials used, it is worth considering these points when designing a new chemical product:

1. The raw materials should be commercially available, and not restricted on account of process claims.
2. The materials should be of a grade suitable for immediate use.
3. The raw materials should be easily transportable, and not encumbered by import restrictions, law enforcement watch lists or EPA restrictions.
4. It should also be TSCA and REACH listed.
5. It should also be free of problematic isomers and explosaphors, like azide or nitro esters.

Hopefully, by following these recommendations, costs can be kept low.

Without the worry of expense, we would all be alchemists. So the chemist should also be wary to minimise expensive procedures. For example, does it require tight fractional distillation for final purity or can this be avoided? Does it need more than a single protection scheme or require large amounts of high pressure work? Is it soluble enough in process solvents? Is it very stable?  Does it require extremes of hot or cold? Can it be easily isolated, or does it require some complicated centrifugal process?

Always question your levels of purity. The costs for increasing purity by one or two percentage points can easily escalate. So it is important to consider whether the extra quality is cost effective or even necessary.

Often each individual process will require reconsidering. Can an n-octyl ester group product be used in favour of 2-ethylhexyl ester? Will the product have organic solubility problems? Can aliphatics enhance processability? Are nitromethanes used as a solvent? Or does the process need an expensive PGM catalyst?

Given the complexity of designing a new process, the multitude of factors to be considered, the array of raw materials, the importance of legislation and costing, it is understandable why chemists are always trying to keep the methodology of the design process simple.

Certainly there will be changes in methodology over time, for example today it is more important to consider recycling and sustainability, (concepts that were less prominent thirty years ago), but the central theme remains.

Use raw materials that are easily accessible and keep your processes simple.

Life on our planet is changing, and it is changing at an exponential rate. Previous changes in fashion, music and technology helped define the decades of the 20^th century, from the roaring twenties to the swinging sixties. Today’s fashion, music and technology passes in a matter of weeks. Pop bands form and break up whilst the members are still teenagers, toy crazes last a single holiday season and your mobile phone is out of date about the same time that you take it out of the box.

And so it is with the way that global chemical companies operate. Previous manufacturing giants moved with great solemnity to action, developing long term plans and policies for sustained growth. Nowadays, it is more important than ever for chemical bosses to stay ahead of the curve and react to a smaller, faster moving world. Those who failed to profit from the Tiger economies of 20 years ago, face an uphill battle to compete today. Those who do not modernise their practices to comply with EU’s REACH policy will suffer at the hands of shareholders and it is only the swift footed businessman who will negotiate the mergers and acquisitions storm raging across China this month.

With an expanding population and increasing standards of living, the pressure on the chemicals industry to provide and to be sustainable and low impact is immense. As margins become smaller, the pressure on the environment is growing.

For now it seems as if chasing profits leaves little time to look after the planet, but maybe all that is about to change.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) was founded in 1992, and describes itself as “a CEO-led organization of forward-thinking companies that galvanizes the global business community to create a sustainable future for business, society and the environment.”

It certainly is well led, supported, as it is, by a number of major industrial players, including  Unilever, construction giant Lafarge, Royal Dutch Shell, Solvay and China Petrochemical Corp. to name but a few.

WBCSD’s latest initiative for saving the world is a snappy, little project called Vision 2050. This plan has not only a ‘roadmap’ to success, as well as the obligatory ‘mission statement’, but also “a new agenda for business laying out a pathway to a world in which … people can live well”.

One cannot argue with the sentiment of such actions, our planet will struggle to feed, clothe and keep warm the predicted 9.6 billion people that will be around in the year 2050. However, you don’t have to be too big a cynic to question the desire to succeed by “providing a springboard for dialogue and debate” or by instructing others to “achieve more with less”.

The plans further mandates include a shopping list of ideals that reads as follows:

• Incorporating the costs of externalities, starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water, into the structure of the marketplace;
• Doubling agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used;
• Halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests;
• Halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems;
• Improved demand-side energy efficiency, and providing universal access to low-carbon mobility.

Little is mentioned of how to meet these noble goals, but we are informed that an ‘Information mural’ is in place, which together with the ‘Information poster’ can be purchased for $595 plus shipping (sustainably it is hoped) from Canada.

How far these sentiments will carry in the board room of Unilever or Royal Dutch Shell’s next shareholder meeting remains to be seen, but there are many who fear it is just window-dressing publicity.

Has there ever been a business venture that has philanthropically impacted our planet?

Certainly we have seen charities have an impact on world want (Oxfam, Save the Children) and the global environment (Greenpeace, Save the Whale). Similarly government has played a part in efforts such as enforcing clean air acts and banning non-energy efficient light bulbs, but what evidence do we have of an impact from big chem?

There have been numerous philanthropic individuals from business, from steel manufacturer, Andrew Carnegie to British sugar magnate Henry Tate, to today’s Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but where is the impact for sustainability from firms themselves? Are Unilever and China Chemical Corp. doing their bit to help the planet?

There are many people who will think that they don’t do enough, and that their focus is too centred on profit. But in that belief lies the key to the problem, for ultimately you cannot remove profitability from sustainability. The chemicals industry, like any other, is based on economics.

Certainly the rhetoric of Vision 2050 and similar projects are worthy, but in the end it’s all dollars and cents. And that makes sense. Because the simple message of reduce, reuse, recycle is both sustainable and profitable, and you don’t need a ‘roadmap’ to find it.

The man on the street may care little for the power struggles of the world. While he takes care of his day to day business, worries about his family and how to pay the bills, the superpowers of the world play the game of politics regardless. Nowhere is this more evident than in the UN where the good and the great, the corrupt and the criminal hold court to improve their power bases and protect their vested interests.

And yet the UN has one function for which much of the world is concerned, and that is the protection of the environment on a global scale. To this end, and true to form at the UN, a panel has been formed.

Its goal is to examine the way that the world’s oceans are used as an uncontrolled landfill. For despite the fact that nature is able to handle some types of waste, other substances will remain a pollutant on the planet long after mankind has gone.

At present, much of the research focus is on plastic. Particularly plastic that has largely biodegraded into microparticles that range in size from 5mm to 1nm. These tiny pieces are being distributed around the planet on the ocean currents, such that no marine ecosystem is left untouched. They are made up of an assortment of mankind’s waste, and are based on plasticizers, stabilizers, antistatic agents, dispersants and flame retardants.

Worse still, is that when the microparticles break down, through the influence of UV rays and seawater, they release toxic substances into the water.

Even worse still, is that the molecular structure of many plastics also have the ability to absorb hydrophobic impurities in the water, these then damage plant and animal cell membranes.

Up till now it has been the job of the experts in the UN to warn, warn and warn again, of the dangers of our current course. They have pressured nations to act, and made declarations on environmental security, and yet still the Great Pacific garbage patch keeps on growing.

At present the American Association for the Advancement of Science calculates that “The amount of plastic waste entering the world’s oceans every year could be as much as 8 million tonnes – 3% of the plastic waste produced every year.”

Jenna Jambeck, from the University of Georgia, believes that the figures will only get worse. As she states, “ If we assume a ‘business as usual’ projection with growing populations, increasing plastic consumption and increased waste generation by 2025 this number (of 8 million tonnes of waste) more than doubles. So we may be adding as much as 17.5 million tonnes per year.”

With little action from anywhere else, it has fallen to a man named Boyan Slat to do something. This 20-year old, founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, is attempting to do what the UN seems incapable of trying. For last week at the Seoul Digital Forum, Asia’s largest technology conference, he announced the future deployment of the world’s first system to passively remove plastic from the sea.

The proposed system (pictured) will span 2000m, making it the longest floating struture ever, more than double the size of the previous longest (the Toyko Megafloat). Outlining his proposals, Slat makes clear that, “It will be operational for at least two years, catching plastic pollution before it reaches the shores of the proposed deployment location of Tsushima island, Japan.”

The site was chosen for its heavy pollution, as it has been calculated that the beach receives as much as one cubic meter of pollution per inhabitant each year. There it is hoped that the collected plastic could be recycled or even used as an alternative energy source.

So if a young man can formulate a plan and generate enough interest and money to start cleaning up a small patch of the ocean near Japan, then think what the plastics and polymers industry could achieve.

Multinational corporations have huge influence on governments at all levels, they also have the money to develop further projects like ‘The Ocean Cleanup’, as well as investing in technology to make recycling a more profitable venture.

In fact, isn’t it time that big business started cleaning up after itself?