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The best thing about working in the field of chemistry is the sense of being on the cutting edge of something. A science that is vital to life and touches so many areas of other industries; energy, manufacturing, food stuffs, agriculture. The world around us relies on chemistry.

As a science, it is full of exploration and research into the unknown, something that is never felt by those working in banking, advertising or insurance. The new discoveries of today, are new markets for traders and businessmen in the chemicals’ industry of the future.

Which is why it is worth taking a look at what breakthroughs have been made over the past year. These exciting developments give all of us the buzz we yearn for in life. Something that few occupations have. As Melissa A. Hines, director of Cornell University’s Center for Materials said earlier in the year, “In all honesty, I decided to become a chemist right after I found out that I couldn’t become a cowboy.”

So here are the top 4 chemical breakthroughs of the last 18 months.

1. Batteries

Much research has been done in the field of batteries these past few years. Anyone with a mobile or laptop will tell you how the energy never lasts long enough and that the battery is always too big or too heavy, whilst environmentalists remind us how incorrect disposal of mercury or lithium batteries can effect us all for years to come.

Maybe these problems will soon be a thing of the past, because scientists at Virginia Tech have developed a bio-battery that runs on sugar. It is claimed that they hold twice the power of a lithium battery and using a new enzymatic route to remove electrons from sugar, can create energy from maltodextrin. They can even be recharged by simply adding more sugar.

Another development has lithium-ion batteries that can be physically stretched out by up to 600%, enabling them to be woven into cloth. This was achieved by using carbon nanotube-lithium “yarns” wound onto an elastomer base, which was then covered with a layer of gel electrolyte.

2. Medicine

In the medical world, scientists have developed an artificial skin that wraps around a prosthetic limb, giving the user the sensation of pressure and heat. This has been achieved with flexible sensors that send signals directly to the wearer’s brain.

Meanwhile the Scripps Research Institute has been able to turn cells into ‘drug manufacturing centres’.

Normally, large molecules cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, resulting in the use of medicines based on smaller, but less effective, molecules. To overcome this limitation, researchers added small molecules to a diseased living cell with the intention to change the defect on a molecular level. Using a method known as “click chemistry”, these molecule-cell combinations are 1,000 times more potent than the small molecule itself.

3. Greenhouse Gases

The US department of agriculture released a report detailing the most accurate calculations for quantifying greenhouse gases in different locations (prairies, rainforest, tundra etc). Whilst the evidence presented was not ground-breaking in itself, the report is the most up-to-date and non-researcher friendly of its kind, and is sure to assist future studies.

Meanwhile, a team from the University of Houston has developed a molecule that can ‘eat’ greenhouse gases.  This molecule can adopt a porous structure able to bind to several hazardous gases that are present in the atmosphere. This is basically a “big ball” covered with pores lined with fluorine atoms. This then gives it an affinity or attraction for other fluorine-based compounds, such as fluorocarbons. Crucially, the weak bonds of this molecule can then be reversed or recycled.

4. New Materials

The discovery of graphine, a material with the thickness of a single molecule, and its countless possible applications was big news in previous years, but now the science behind its creation has inspired further ‘2D’ materials.

These include phosphorene, developed from phosphurus by a team at Purdue University in America. They were able to exfoliate black phosphurus in a similar way that graphine is exfoliated from graphite. The researchers claim that phosphorene has better electrical conductor properties than graphene.

Silicene has been developed from silicon, germenen from germanium and arsenene from arsenic, all with varying properties, but all strong and very, very, very thin.

Whilst all of these breakthroughs leave us standing in amazement at what the future will bring, they also leave us asking ourselves in what ways can we further develop, market or profit from these advances. That said, it is also worth remembering what Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla cars said earlier in the year.

“It’s remarkable how many so-called breakthroughs you read about that turn out to be nonsense.”

Despite optimistic forecasts for growth in the EU chemical industry, there is considerable concern for the short-term prospects for the oil industry and its impact on the entire chemical industry. The situation can be illustrated by a closer look at just one area of oil processing – benzene.

As benzene is one of the key raw materials for further processing, its price is carefully monitored. Since the beginning of the year, due to an expected overall market recovery, there was increased interest in buying benzene. Yet the price has not risen, due in part to falling oil prices and a glut in pyrolysis gasoline. Further pressure was put on the price of benzine as limited export opportunities and stagnating demand resulted in a fall in its value.

While it was assumed that the price of benzene in early March could be as high as $640/mt CIF NWE, this is not as low as many would like, as deals were made last March for as little as $590/mt FOB NWE.

This development has had a big impact on producer margins, reducing them drastically, which in turn reduces production capacity as investors leave. This downward trend will continue until the oil industry recovers. There is the possibility of benzene exports to North America, where the market has already recovered, so a break in current price trends could occur in the second half of March. Although this in turn is provided that the increased export of benzene in the US Gulf does not pull prices below $2/gal.

With so many factors to be considered, traders are still uncertain as to which direction prices will go, an uncertainty that will likely cause further problems for the EU chemicals market.

Your team Spotchemi

Launched in 2005, the European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) was established to limit how much carbon the region produced through industry and transport. It hoped to save the planet from disastrous climate change, but some experts predict that it will simply damage the European economy.

Founding the system

The system was based on the US ‘cap and trade scheme’, a product of the Clean Air Act of 1990. Simply put, the system limits the amount of carbon the region can create. Companies that produced a lot of carbon emissions would need to buy a government issued permit allowing them to pollute the air. This would provide an incentive for making your business more environmentally-friendly, as there would be a downside to not being green.

As Steve Richey, a self-proclaimed sustainability expert explains, “Companies which can reduce their emissions at a low cost will do so, and sell the emissions credits to companies who cannot.  This is the ‘trade’ aspect of the program.  The ‘cap’ part reflects the fact that there is some given level of emissions which is a maximum.”

A fine idea, but the practice hit problems, as the original limits in the European system were set too low, causing the price of carbon permits to drop to as low as $2.50 a tonne. At such a low level, it was never worth a company changing their business to avoid buying more permits.

Changing the system

To remedy this, on February 24th 2015, the European Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) decided to reform the scheme. By a majority of 58 to 10, they voted in favour of removing 900 million tonnes of emissions allowances from the system (until a later date), as well as limiting the issue of future permits as soon as 2018 (a date brought forward from the original 2021).

As Ivo Belet, MEP and the man who is guiding the law changes through parliament says, “This vote sends a strong signal that Parliament is serious about fighting climate change … (and) will ensure that CO2 prices spur investments in greater energy efficiency.”

What does this mean for the European chemicals industry?

According to Germany’s chemical industry trade group VCI the decision will have a negative impact on the industry. VCI general manager Utz Tillmann believes that “contrary to what one might think (the changes to the system) will make the market for emissions certificates in Europe unpredictable and could lead to higher costs for energy-intensive industries” such as chemicals.

Klaus Windhagen, general manager of a German paper industry trade group, said that the changes may accelerate firms’ tendency to invest outside the EU “because of the lack of reliability of the European energy and climate policy.”

The European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) agrees, calling the vote “another blow” to the chemicals industry. “Anything that ups our costs relative to global competitors is another blow that we cannot afford,” said Cefic director general Hubert Mandery.

To some extent Brussels has acknowledged the damage that restrictions on carbon emissions will have on European industries. Politicians realise that firms may begin to invest in regions without carbon limits to avoid paying for permits (so called ‘carbon leakage’), and so have promised protection for the ‘most efficient energy-intensive installations’. A move welcomed by Mandery as “an important measure that helps Europe’s real economy remain competitive”.

But as a warning, he adds, “We want to stay in Europe. We want to grow in Europe. But for that we will need more than carbon leakage protection beyond 2020.”

So if it creates a lack of competitiveness, why have ETS?

As Steve Richey explains, “the major benefit of a cap and trade system is that it is inherently efficient at limiting carbon emissions.” And carbon emissions are already changing our planet.

As Satoshi Kambayashi of the Economist magazine makes clear, “Carbon does harm globally. There is a logic to having a global price for it.”

This is a line of thinking supported by those in power. At a recent industry panel in Singapore, Matthew Baldwin from the directorate-general for mobility and transport, part of the European Commission, stated that, “There was a universal sense within Europe, but I hope not just in Europe, that we have a real problem we’re trying to solve in climate change.”

Like many politicians, he sees ETS as the solution, but what long term effect it will have on the European chemicals economy is unknown. As mentioned earlier in this article, other regions do have similar schemes. The Western Climate Initiative on the Pacific coast of North America and the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, set up in 2009, both run a ‘cap and trade’ system, whilst Japan, China and South Korea all have legislation or proposals to introduce systems in the coming years.

Can ETS go global?

Yet the problem remains that whilst the price of carbon permits are set by market forces, the amount of carbon allowed is based on the decisions of regional politicians. They decide how many permits to issue each year, and so will be under pressure to issue more to aid the economy in the area.

Unilateral action by the EU, will affect productivity, either pushing firms to leave to not-so-greener pastures or driving them to bankruptcy. At present, Brussels seems to believe that the advantages of restricting climate change outweigh the disadvantages of restricting carbon emissions. So the key question is; will it work, if the system isn’t global?

As Chris de Lavigne, a renewable energy specialist at industry consultants Frost and Sullivan says, “Anything to do with carbon on a global basis has proven to be difficult, (when what is needed is) to get the four corners of the world to agree on one system.”

Whether that will happen in time to save the European chemicals industry or to save the planet remains to be seen.