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Digital Disruption in the Lab: The Case for R&D Digitalization in Chemicals

Accenture
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Digital Disruption in the Lab: The Case for R&D Digitalization in Chemicals

Abstract
The advent of Industry 4.0 recognizes the impact of paradigm shifting digitalization in the chemical industry. This article discusses the applications of various elements of digitalization and its implications on R&D

In 2015 we had published our view on the future of R&D in the chemical industry. Since then technologies such as lab automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are being adapted more rapidly than before. This has widespread implications for the R&D processes that chemical companies use and provides new opportunities for leading companies to use digitalization to expedite data analytics and discovery.

As in our earlier original paper, we had introduced six evolution pathways (Figure 1). Over the past few years, chemical companies have progressed at varying speeds along these pathways, with some universal advancements:
Ideation
Open innovation and co-creation with customers have become the norm for most players.
Connectivity
The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected labs is on the rise, but often information is still fragmented across global R&D sites.
Analytics
Analytics and AI initiatives are advancing; however, access to consolidated, quality data remains a challenge.
Organization
Many companies still maintain captive R&D functions and hesitate to utilize flexible collaboration networks, leaving value on the table.
Process
Automation is increasing as part of Industry 4.0 initiatives.
Skills
Industry players are hiring new profiles (e.g., data scientists), but hesitate to build flexible external networks.

Since chemical companies generate enormous amounts of data in R&D, connectivity and analytics are two particularly promising development pathways. These categories require adopting new approaches to access integrated, high-quality data, which is particularly important for companies where massive data harmonization initiatives have reached their limits.

Given the digital technology advancements in AI, it is now possible to build cutting-edge data access solutions that bracket existing enterprise R&D systems; apply automation and machine learning for data ingestion; and offer human-centered, intuitive access to the data via virtual agents and chatbots. This enables a new way of working in the chemical lab.

From Legacy to Digital: New Ways of Working with Data
While many chemical companies have developed digital strategies and implemented “lighthouse” projects in some business functions, R&D appears to be stuck in traditional experimental design and data handling.

 

As shown in Figure 2, researchers and lab technicians still spend large amounts of time navigating through various internal and external data sources—including Laboratory Journals, Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Regulatory Data, Analytics, Product Data Sheets, Scientific Literature, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Information and Patent Databases.

While some results are shared between these various sources, most information is not transferred. Thus, the chemist must retrieve and aggregate the information required to make the best-educated decision. Furthermore, employees also tend to rely on experience accumulated within their own micro-environment.

While this way of working may have previously been successful, the ever-growing amount of data, pressure from innovative competitors and new technological opportunities are starting to overwhelm R&D employees — and the way of working must change. Thus, it is time to rethink information management in the lab setting and use supportive digital technologies to quickly harvest and improve the value generated from these myriad data sources.

The main challenges within R&D from a data perspective are threefold: highly fragmented information due to data systems that diverge by chemical application, inhomogeneous data quality and a limited ability to monitor external activity effectively. Many existing data management systems were also developed without human-centricity in mind, thus they are highly complex to use and seldom accepted by new employees.

However, by integrating recent technologies such as lab automation and AI, these barriers can be bridged, leading to intuitive access to data and freeing up R&D time for creativity. Chemical executives are increasingly recognizing this—51 percent of industry respondents to Accenture’s Technology Vision 2018 survey confirmed they are planning to apply AI solutions in R&D over the next two years. As a result, chemical companies will leapfrog into an entirely new way of turning their R&D data into business value.

Deploying AI makes it possible to extract and effectively index both structured and unstructured data. This enables companies to automate the integration and cleansing of such diverse information as lab reports, images, spreadsheets, text documents or presentations.

Combined with well-established technologies such as optical character recognition, even the digitization of handwritten documents becomes economically feasible.

Taking this a step further, the knowledge platform (Figure 3) created by the above processes allows researchers or portfolio managers to evolve to a whole new way of working. For instance, employees might pose questions in natural language to a chatbot that accesses advanced analytics behind the scenes to provide answers within seconds. Possible questions include:

Based on historical data, how will a new formulation perform in the lab, in production or in an application?

Has a similar experiment been conducted previously, in the company or elsewhere? What was the outcome? What was missed at the time? Is an internal expert available?

Where would this product be suitable for other applications and new markets?

In addition, intelligent systems can be trained to analyze external information and perform tasks such as detecting potential patent infringements or providing developers with insight on relevant market activities. Furthermore, with centrally managed information technologies, R&D can be fully integrated into a new business IT architecture (e.g., SAP S/4HANA) and benefit from shared, consistent master data and more direct interaction with other already digitally-enhanced functions.

Business Case Drives Outcomes
In addition to a more responsive R&D process, R&D digitalization comes with a strong supporting business case—the costs of digitalization, including the buildup of software, hardware and infrastructure as well as of changing established operating procedures, will be outweighed by significant efficiency gains.
Applying digital measures to R&D can drive economic value through three specific effects.
First, leveraging digital capabilities in R&D can speed the innovation process by up to 15 percent, based on Accenture Strategy project experience. Examples include faster preparation and experimentation through lab automation and robotics, and a quicker ability to complete research and collect relevant information through ubiquitously available data.

Second, the improved availability and analyzability of R&D data makes it easier to estimate the technical feasibility of development projects and optimize resource allocation, leading to a higher success rate on R&D projects.

Third, being able to use digital technologies to make better decisions throughout the entire innovation funnel increases the R&D portfolio value.
While each case needs to be evaluated in its individual context, based on Accenture Strategy project experience, R&D digitalization addresses multiple economic value drivers, as shown in Figure 4.

Implications for R&D
Planning and designing a technical platform for R&D data digitalization should follow a use-case-driven approach, to avoid creating a fancy technical solution that does not provide substantial benefits. Rather than just consolidating available data and adding AI and analytics functionality on top, chemical companies need to approach platform design and implementation pathways based on the requirements of R&D stakeholders.

Automation and AI technology is available and ready to use. However, there is no one-fits-all solution. The implementation timeline and effort depend on the diversity of R&D data and applications as well as on the desired functionality.

In addition, companies wishing to improve their R&D capability need to think through the human implications of a new technology for their R&D operating models and employees. Collaboration processes might evolve to include more cross-fertilization among businesses and regions. Traditional R&D roles such as idea scouting or experimental design and execution may no longer be needed. By contrast, more technical capabilities might be required to operate the data management system, maintain data ingestion and continuously evolve analytics use cases based on the needs of the R&D stakeholders.

Considering this shift of required skill sets, a chemical company should also evaluate which capabilities to build internally and which to source from an ever-growing external R&D ecosystem.

Given the rapid advancements in technology and significant potential business benefits, R&D digitalization should be a “must-do” on every company’s agenda. The time is now for chemical industry players to think about how to unlock the value hidden in their data and take R&D performance to the next level.

This article is reprinted entirely from Accenture, which retains full publication rights.

To digitalize your R&D lab please contact:
Saurabh Tayal
Accenture India
Email: saurabh.tayal@accenture.com

Nobel Prize 2019 – Highly Charged Achievement!

Chemical Industry Digest
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Nobel Prize 2019 – Highly Charged Achievement!

The Trio of Lithium-Ion Battery Discovery Wins Nobel in Chemistry

(L-R) John Goodenough, Stanley Wittingham and Akira Yoshino

The most coveted Nobel Prizes are known for awarding and recognizing scientific discoveries that have made phenomenal difference to the world. This year’s Nobel in Chemistry is awarded for the pioneering discovery of Lithium-ion battery- paving the way for smartphones and a fossil fuel-free society. Such storage batteries that are small and have longer operating duration have created a paradigm shift in the field of electronics. This revolutionary invention is shared among 3- as the electrons in the lithium atom- Stanley Wittingham, John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino.

Seeking an alternative source of power during the oil crisis of the 1970’s, Wittingham who was working at Exxon on superconductors discovered that the combination of titanium disulphide and metallic lithium at the cathode of a battery would harness immense potential energy. As lithium releases a lot of electrons and is very reactive, it was prone to explosions. He constructed a 2V battery partly made of lithium. However, it was too unstable to be used.
Further to Wittingham’s work, John Goodenough substituted titanium disulphide with cobalt oxide in the cathode, producing a battery with double potential. This paved the way in not only making efficient and durable batteries but also in making John, the oldest, at 97 to receive the Nobel Prize.

Winning the Nobel Prize is undoubtedly one of the most exhilarating moments in a scientist’s life. When asked about his reaction on winning the Nobel, John said that he was pleased and moreover surprised. He assumed he was too old to have received this honour. But even at this age he still works in the laboratory researching. He also said that he would not want to retire and just wait for death to come. He is a passionate researcher with immense love for science.

He further added that “Our innovations are morally neutral and it depends on how we use the. So if people use the lithium-ion battery well. I am delighted.”

Although John’s work was better, it just wasn’t good enough to be commercially viable.
In 1985, Akira Yoshino perfected the batteries by going a step ahead and created the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery, amid Japan’s increasing push for lightweight, high-capacity batteries. He used petroleum coke, a carbon-based byproduct of the oil industry, in the anode. This eliminated the used of pure lithium, which is extremely reactive.

The change resulted in a rechargeable and durable battery. Since 1991, when lithium-ion batteries made their commercial debut, they have come a long way and made wireless devices and renewable energy viable.


Oxygen is More than Just the Gas You Breathe!

Medicine Nobel Laureates Awarded for Research in Physiological Processes

The 2019 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology was jointly awarded to Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, William G. Kaelin Jr, and Gregg L. Semenza for their discoveries of “how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability”. Animals need oxygen for the conversion of food into useful energy. The fundamental importance of oxygen has been understood for centuries, but how cells adapt to changes in levels of oxygen has long been unknown.

(L-R) Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, Gregg L. Semenza and William G. Kaelin Jr

The trio discovered how cells can sense and adapt to changing oxygen availability and identified molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen. They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function. Their discoveries have also paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and many other diseases.

Gregg Semenza studied the EPO gene and how it is regulated by varying oxygen levels. Sir Peter Ratcliffe also studied O2-dependent regulation of the EPO gene, and both research groups found that the oxygen sensing mechanism was present in virtually all tissues, not only in the kidney cells where EPO is normally produced. These were important findings showing that the mechanism was general and functional in many different cell types.

Semenza discovered a protein complex that binds to the identified DNA segment in an oxygen-dependent manner. He called this complex the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). Semenza was able to publish some of his key findings, including identification of the genes encoding HIF. HIF was found to consist of two different DNA-binding proteins, so called transcription factors, now named HIF-1α and ARNT.

HIF-1α is normally degraded rapidly, but is protected from degradation in hypoxia. At normal oxygen levels, a cellular machine called the proteasome degrades HIF-1α. Under such conditions a small peptide, ubiquitin, is added to the HIF-1α protein. Ubiquitin functions as a tag for proteins destined for degradation in the proteasome. How ubiquitin binds to HIF-1α in an oxygen-dependent manner remained a central question.

The answer came from an unexpected direction. At about the same time as Semenza and Ratcliffe were exploring the regulation of the EPO gene, cancer researcher William Kaelin, Jr. was researching an inherited syndrome, von Hippel-Lindau’s disease (VHL disease). This genetic disease leads to dramatically increased risk of certain cancers in families with inherited VHL mutations. Kaelin showed that the VHL gene encodes a protein that prevents the onset of cancer. He also showed that cancer cells lacking a functional VHL gene express abnormally high levels of hypoxia-regulated genes; but that when the VHL gene was reintroduced into cancer cells, normal levels were restored. This was an important clue showing that VHL was somehow involved in controlling responses to hypoxia. Ratcliffe and his research group then made a key discovery: demonstrating that VHL can physically interact with HIF-1α and is required for its degradation at normal oxygen levels. This conclusively linked VHL to HIF-1α.

Nobel Prize in Physics for Cosmology

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored scientists for changing how we think of the cosmos. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 “for contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos” is shared among 3 scientists. With one half to James Peebles of Princeton University “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology” and the other half jointly to Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva, Switzerland and the University of Cambridge, UK.
It is significant that all three winners of the 2019 Physics Nobel worked in space-themed areas in a year when important space events are being celebrated. These include the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon, the 50th year of Isro and the 100 birth anniversary of the father of the Indian space programme, Vikram Sarabhai.

(L-R) James Peebles, Michael Mayor, and Didier Queloz

In October 1995, the duo announced the first discovery of a planet outside our solar system. Using custom-made instruments, they spotted the Jupiter-like planet 51 Pegasi b from the Haute-Provence Observatory in southern France. Today, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been spotted in the Milky Way, and the discoveries keep on coming.

James Peebles’ work brought light on the universe’s structure and history and laid the foundations for cosmology for the past 50 years. The big bang model describes how the universe evolved over nearly 14bn years from a hot, dense ball to the vast, cold and expanding universe of today.

With theoretical tools and calculations, James Peebles interpreted these traces from the infancy of the universe and discovered new physical processes. He found that only 5% of the observable universe is known to us in the form of stars, planets and people. The remaining 95% is mysterious and made up of what physicists call dark energy and dark matter. So-called dark energy is said to drive the expansion of the universe, while dark matter is the invisible substance that appears to hang around galaxies, revealing itself only by its gravitational draw.

James Peebles left a footprint in Mumbai when he visited TIFR in 2011. He gave lectures and interacted with scientists and even laypersons, according to Pankaj Joshi, a cosmologist who was with the institute, and is now director of the International Centre for Cosmology near Anand in Gujarat. After visiting a few labs and interacting with scientists working in the field of cosmology, Peebles provided useful scientific observations and comments which were well appreciated.

Dr. M.D. Nair – Fifty Years in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

Chemical Industry Digest
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Dr. M.D. Nair – Fifty Years in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

If there is one industry in India that has earned a respectable prowess in R&D, compared to other chemical & allied industries, it is the pharma industry. In particular, the Indian pharma industry is known for its capabilities in developing very good cost efficient alternate process routes for the manufacture of novel drugs developed elsewhere. This approach was enabled by the Indian Patents Act of 1970, for a long time till 2002 and after, when the amendments to the Patents Act came into effect based on product patents, in sync to a great extent with IPR regulations elsewhere in the western world.

His Life and Times

So an industry which barely had only a rudimentary presence at the time of Indian independence started blossoming and moving up steadily. It was around that time that a young scientist, Dr. MD Nair after his PhD from the University of Illinois, a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the National Research Council of Ottawa, Canada; Alfred P Sloan Research Foundation and Research Associate at University of Illinois after a stint with the Pharmaceutical Research Group of Ciba Ltd in Switzerland joined the Research group of CIBA in 1963 in Goregaon, a suburb of Bombay. After 23 years in Ciba Geigy, he worked for 13 years in Southern Petrochemicals Corporation (SPIC), Chennai, spearheading their pharma division where he set up for SPIC, a state of the art Pharma R&D centre, a production unit for medical devices, a multipurpose plant for bulk drugs manufacture and a drug formulations plant. After 13 years with SPIC, he retired to be an ardent spokesperson of the Indian Pharma industry and became a consultant in the healthcare field to a wide range of organisations from hospitals, pharma companies to governmental and non-governmental agencies.

The Indian Pharma Scenario

So the story of Dr. MD Nair, his life and times recounted in this book – and not an autobiography as he hastens to clarify – is virtually the story of the growth of the Indian pharma industry over the last half a century from 1963 till now – how it evolved, the challenges faced, the developments in regulatory mechanisms, the stalwarts who shaped the industry, R&D and the development of indigenous technology. The book chronicles the state of the art situation in the Indian Pharmaceutical industry with the author’s very first hand intensive engagement and committed work with the industry during the last fifty years.

In about 13 chapters, each one a standalone chapter on topics by itself, Dr. Nair has traced the historical growth of the Indian pharma industry to present times and in the context of the global pharma growth. He has outlined the birth of the generics industry, made comparisons between Indian & Chinese pharma industries, explained the problems & challenges facing the industry and the emergence of biotech, biologicals, biogenerics/ biosimilars.

He has written in depth about his career and work with Ciba Geigy and later with SPIC. His stint with Ciba Research Centre and later its close down as also his tenure with SPIC would serve as good case studies in both research & pharma management. His analyses and comments on the problems and challenges facing the Indian pharma industry, on R&D, on TRIPS, on drug regulations are very indepth and incisive.

Interactions with Industry Stalwarts

His interactions with many doyens, thought & change leaders whose philosophies, views & work had a great influence on the healthcare industry in India are very interesting to read through the many anecdotes he recounts. He has shared on Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, Dr. R A Mashelkar, Dr. Devi Shetty, Dr. K M Cherian, Dr. P K Warrier amongst others. Dr. Nair also profiles some leading captains of the pharma industry of his era such as late Dr.Parvinder Singh, late Dr.Anji Reddy, Dr. Yusuf Hamied, Dr. A V Rama Rao, Dr. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (just to name a few) who shaped the industry’s destiny. Many global legends like Prof. Roger Adams, Prof. E J Corey, Prof. Alexander Todd, Prof. James Watson amongst others and his interactions with them are quite scintillating. His active post retirement work in consultancy and as an advisor on pharma matters to WHO, various central and state governments and as a member and head of various task forces and pharma associations not only displays his absolute passion to guide the fortunes of this vital industry but also proves that post retirement can be used to its full potential to leverage the intellectual capital one has gained.

Commenting on his book Dr. R A Mashelkar had this to state: “This (book) is not only readable, but a ‘must read’ by all stakeholders, including captains, senior members and future leaders of the pharma industry, researchers, industrial R&D managers, policy planners, students of history as well as historians and even future investors.”

Chemingineering | Powering the Future

K. Sahasranaman (Independent Industry Consultant)
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Chemingineering | Powering the Future

This month, our columnist examines the architecture, advantages and limitations of the Lithium-ion battery. Energy storage in large quantities is important if we have to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and adopt renewable power like solar and wind. Can the Lithium-ion battery power us into the future?

This year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry has put the spotlight on battery, a device that we have grown to take for granted. The “Baghdad Battery”, a 2200-year-old clay jar, is believed to be the oldest known electric battery. Since then, the battery has evolved remarkably to the present day Lithium-ion cell, a lightweight and rechargeable battery that is used to power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles. Stanley Whittingham laid the foundation for the Lithium-ion battery during the oil crisis of the 1970s. John Goodenough made a substantial breakthrough on the battery’s cathode in 1980, based upon which Akira Yoshino made the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1985. Whittingham, Goodenough and Yoshino were conferred with the Nobel Prize for chemistry, earlier this month, for their contributions to the development of lithium-ion battery.

Lithium Battery

Lithium-ion battery has numerous advantages compared to its predecessor, the lead-acid battery. They can charge and discharge at high rates and this offers the versatility required in many applications. Rapid charging minimises downtime. High discharge rate provides the perfect burst of power. Unlike lead-acid batteries, temperature fluctuations do not affect the power delivery of lithium-ion battery. Lead-acid batteries need regular water replacement to avoid structural damage and have a shortened lifespan if not maintained properly. In comparison, lithium-ion batteries do not need active maintenance. But the biggest advantage of lithium-ion batteries is their energy storage density. Compared to other battery chemistries, lithium-ion batteries provide same or more energy at less than half the weight and size. The biggest driver of the penetration of renewable energy will be a robust energy storage.

Battery Architecture

A typical battery uses cathode and anode, made out of metals or compounds having different chemical potentials. The flow of electrons from the anode to cathode through the external connection delivers the power. Electrons are produced inside the battery as a result of a chemical reaction. The electrolyte, which is a conducting fluid, is used to transfer the electrons internally within the battery from the cathode to the anode. In primary batteries, the chemical reaction that produces the flow of electrons cannot be reversed, whereas in rechargeable batteries the chemical reaction can be reversed.

“A battery by definition is a collection of cells. So the cell is a little can of chemicals. And the challenge is taking a very high-energy cell, and a large number of them, and combining them safely into a large battery.” – Elon Musk

Lithium Chemistry

Lithium-ion battery does not depend upon chemical reactions that break down the cathode and anode, but upon a flow of lithium ions back and forth between the anode and cathode. Whittingham’s battery used cathode made from titanium disulphide and anode from metallic lithium. The ions released from the metallic lithium were intercalated inside the molecular-sized spaces of the cathode. The high reactivity of metallic lithium however made this battery very vulnerable to fire and explosion. Goodenough discovered that cathodes made out of oxides of a transition metal like Cobalt or Nickel improved the battery’s performance substantially. The first commercial lithium-ion battery developed by Yoshino used anodes made from petroleum coke instead of the reactive metallic lithium and were able to intercalate the lithium ions.

Electrolyte Hazard

The most commonly used electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries are based on LiPF6(Lithium Hexafluorophosphate) and mixtures of carbonate solvents. The carbonates, such as dimethyl carbonate, ethyl methyl carbonate, or diethyl carbonate are required to keep the electrolyte viscosity low and the electrolyte conductivity high. Unfortunately, they are highly volatile and flammable and have flash points close to room temperature. One of the strategies to mitigate the fire hazard associated with the electrolyte is to use non-flammable electrolytes. Another option is to use flame-retardant additives. However, these additives affect the electrochemical performance of batteries negatively by deteriorating the cycling stability and/or the rate capability.

Solid Electrolyte

Researchers are exploring the possibility of replacing the flammable liquid electrolytes by solid electrolytes. The challenge is the low mobility of lithium ions through the solid electrolytes will limit the battery performance in terms of charge and discharge rates. Researchers at the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium have achieved a breakthrough that could enhance the mobility of lithium ions. Their new compound is known as LiTi (PS4)3 or LTPS. It has a unique crystal structure with the highest lithium diffusion coefficient ever measured in a solid. LTPS holds the promise to be a new high performance and safe solid electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries. The discovery of LTPS opens up new avenues to search for similar materials with even better lithium diffusion coefficients thus paving the way to build safer solid-state batteries of the future.

Alternative

Lithium-ion batteries have already been in existence close to three decades now. And it has got better and cheaper. Manipulating the cathode material has increased the storage capacity of the battery. The battery cost has plummeted from $1160 / KWH in 2010 to $175 / KWH last year and is expected to further go down to $100 / KWH by 2024. While the fall in price is opening up new markets for the lithium-ion batteries, not everyone is convinced that the road to future is paved with lithium. Automobile manufacturers are hoping and praying for a breakthrough in battery technology that will enable their EVs to travel 800 kms on a charge. Bulk storage of renewable power also requires alternative battery technologies. At present lithium-ion batteries plugged into power grid can supply energy for just about four hours. This is woefully inadequate for integrating large quantities of renewable energy. Carbon dust and silicon dust have shown to boost the storage capacity of lithium-ion battery. But even as researchers are exploring alternate materials and examining radically different architectures for the battery, the worldwide manufacturing capacity for lithium-ion batteries has tripled in the last five years.

Epilogue

Catastrophic climate change has created a new urgency to accelerate adoption of green energy. Renewable energy like solar and wind are not only intermittent but also have a geographic diversity. As we move into a new energy regime with diminished dependency on fossil fuels, we will need bigger and powerful batteries. Robustness of batteries will be the key to a rapid and smooth switch to cyclic forms of energy like solar and wind.

Readers’ responses may be sent to k.sahasranaman@gmail.com or chemindigest@gmail.com

Chemical Industry Digest
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Eminent piping engineers and few design organizations have joined hands with IIT Bombay and methodically designed a formal Certificate Course on Piping Engineering for chemical and mechanical engineering freshers and employees. After its initiation in 1992, the course has been conducted 75 times over the last 25 years.

The open course is conducted twice every year, winter and summer editions. Enrolment for the Winter 2019 edition is now open.

For all details regarding the course click on download the brochure.

Chemical Industry Digest – October 2019

Chemical Industry Digest
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Chemical Industry Digest – October 2019

Articles covered in this issue:

Self-Sufficiency in Urea Production by 2022 – Miles to go?
– Dr. MP Sukumaran Nair
Centre for Green Technology and Management India is preparing itself for self-sufficiency in urea production, as the demand for this important fertilizer grows progressively. In this article, the author sheds light on the various new expansion plans and projects that are on the anvil, as well as the market trends in urea production and consumption.

Chemicals in Crop Care: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
– Dr. Manjula Alla, Dr. Srinivas Kantevari
CSIR-IICT Agrochemicals ensure a series of benefits to Indian farming practices with their contribution towards crop protection resulting in better yields and quality produce of crops. The history and significance of agrochemicals, complexities of new agrochemical discoveries, the environmental challenges and the future of crop protection in India are discussed in detail in this article.

Furans: Developments in Synthesis and Derivation for Value Added Products.
– Dr. Paresh Laxmikant Dhepe
CSIR-NCL Furans, one of the most important platform compounds in the chemical industry, are being synthesised from biomass in the recent years. Here, several case studies provide an overview of the challenges arising in these processes. The future implications of furan derived compounds and products are also covered in this article.

Process Intensification Aspects in Industrial Wastewater Treatment
– Lakshmi N.J., Gogate P.R.
Institute of Chemical Technology The management of effluent treatment in industrial sectors is becoming ever increasingly critical given the pressure on industries to conform to newer and more stringent environmental norms. Membrane based technologies and Advanced Oxidation. Processes (AOP) in combination with existing technologies offer significant improvements in the quality of treated wastewater, according to the author.

Liquid-Liquid Mixtures Separation
– S. Raghava Chari
Independent Consultant A comprehensive primer on the design concepts of separators as well as management and operation of coalescers in their role in Liquid-Liquid mixture separation are covered.

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76th Edition of IIT-B’s Piping Engineering Certificate Course

Chemical Industry Digest
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76th Edition of IIT-B’s Piping Engineering Certificate Course

The Certificate Course on Piping Engineering has been the flagship course of IIT Bombay’s professional development programs for freshers and working professionals since the last 27 years. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay was the first university in the world to conduct a formal training programme in Piping Engineering which can be applied to process plant design, engineering, and construction. 75 editions of the course have been conducted so far and have benefited over 10,000 engineers spread over wide age groups from different functional areas and from India as well as overseas.  The course was conceived, conceptualised and developed by late Prof. Arun S. Moharir. The other pioneer of this piping engineering course, Mr. T. N. Gopinath,  would be delivering lectures during the course.

The course would be conducted during  9 – 19 December 2019 at IIT Bombay coordinated by Prof. Madhu Vinjamur.

The course starts with basic concepts, covers the current practices related to basic and detail engineering of projects and concludes by presenting full real life case studies where a project is taken from concept to commissioning. The coverage spans all aspects of piping engineering such as specification engineering, layout engineering, stress analysis, and construction. It begins at graduate level and ends with an extensive knowledge in development of piping engineering as practiced in plants around the world.

Practicals are an important part of the course. The participants are encouraged to develop rational thinking skills through a case study approach. Exposure to important CAD tools available in Piping Engineering arena is offered.

The course has benefitted experienced piping professionals and has also been found very useful by the project and technical service groups of most operating companies. It has helped them evaluate designs, engineering documents and interface with EPC organizations on a project. Companies like IOCL, GAIL, BPCL, HPCL, OIL, NRL, NTPC, NPCIL, HMEL, EIL, Indian Navy, L&T, Mazagon Docks, Reliance Industries, DNPL, AGCL, Inst. of Plasma Research, Leighton, Lloyds Register, Forbes Marshall, Toyo Engineering, Worley Parsons, PetroVietnam, Praxair, Alstom Power (Switzerland), Velosi – Qatar, PDO – Oman, PETROFAC – UAE, etc. and many more,  regularly nominate their engineers for the course.

Fresh/experienced engineers in their capacity as individual professionals wanting to make their career in the area of Piping Engineering also take up the course in large numbers.

For further details, contact:
Prof. Madhu Vinjamur
Course Coordinator
Piping Engineering Cell,
IIT Bombay, Mumbai – 400076
Phone: +91-22-2576- 4790
E-mail: pipingcell@iitb.ac.in, pipingcell.iitb@gmail.com
Website: http:\\iitb.chemindigest.com

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BOOK REVIEW: THE GOLDILOCKS POLICY

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Indian Institute of Petroleum & energy (IIPE) – Multiple Openings

Chemical Industry Digest
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Indian Institute of Petroleum & Energy (IIPE)

Career Opportunities
Applications are invited from the deserved candidates for the positions of Registrar, Junior Engineer (Civil), Junior engineer (Electrical) and Accountant.
For detailed qualifications, experience criteria, etc. please log on to the site of IIPE www.iipe.ac.in under the Career opportunities column. The last date for receipt of applications is 26th October 2019.

 

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