Highlights of Some of the Articles from the Print Edition

In this issue..

PROMOTE INTERSTATE CHEMICAL PROJECTS

In recent times, a lot of news have been appearing in the press about the difficulties in obtaining land for setting up chemical industrial projects due to objections from the land owners and local inhabitants as well as the environmentalists. At the same time, there is intense competition between states in attracting projects for investment. With the liberalization of imports and the need to be globally competitive, there are also genuine difficulties in identifying suitable and appropriate chemical projects for investment.

Such conditions are throwing an element of confusion and uncertainty about setting up of chemical projects in India. While the competition between states in attracting investments for new projects may be considered as healthy, it should not lead to over capacity creation and counter productive conditions and sub optimization of project plans.

Nevertheless, there is considerable concern in India that the capacity expansion of existing projects and setting up of new projects have come down substantially in recent times. A number of massive new projects announced have been inordinately delayed and sometimes have been given up.

The failure of several massive projects in recent times such as the Sea Water Magnesia project of Birla Group in Andhra Pradesh, Petrochemical Complex of Nagarjuna group in Tamil Nadu, PTA project of SPIC group in Tamil Nadu, the inordinate delay in setting up LNG terminal in Kerala, the uncertainty with regard to the much discussed Titanium dioxide project of Tata group etc. should all have been carefully investigated to diagnose the problems and identify solutions. But, nothing of this sort have been done by the Central Government or the concerned state governments or the financing institutions. Unfortunately, the failure of such massive projects have been looked upon as mere news item!

While there is need to set up large projects of globally competitive size that would be viable from the point of view of technology and investment, the comparatively small demand n the Indian market for most of the chemicals is an investment constraint. At the same time, there are also difficulties in meeting the resources required for huge project outlays from the Indian entrepreneurs, as only a handful of industrial houses in India have the capability to raise large resources. In such circumstance, the pooling of the resources by various agencies in India has become necessary to set up large projects.

In recent times, we have often come across situations where massive chemical projects have been planned by individual states often for similar products and without any coordination between the states. Due to the market and investment constraints, many of such projects do not go beyond the drawing board stage. In the case of many project schemes of large size, there may be opportunities to set up only one or two projects in India.

We often come across ridiculous situations such as two neighbouring states planning for same project of massive size and approaching the same multinational organization abroad for technology tie up and equity participation. Sometimes, the neighbouring states are not aware of each other’s plans and programme. Finally, a lot of time is wasted and nothing worthwhile happens.

For example, Tatas have been talking about a large Titanium dioxide project in Tamil Nadu while a large project scheme for Titanium dioxide has been announced in Orissa with Russian collaboration and capacity expansion by two state owned Titanium dioxide projects in Kerala have also been announced. Obviously, there is no case for setting up so many Titanium dioxide projects, each of which should have a capacity of atleast 50000 tonnes per annum in addition to the existing capacity levels. The Indian demand for Titanium dioxide is only 75000 tonnes per annum.

On the other hand, the number of projects needed and the capacity to be created over a period of time have to be discussed at national level with several states agreeing to pool their resources together and distributing the projects between themselves in an equitable manner by discussions and mutual consent. In this way, it would be possible to create massive projects of large capacities and finding enough resources for setting up the projects. This will also avoid counter productive competition in India.

Product Characteristics

Chemical Properties

As the simplest dialdehyde, Glyoxal undergoes reaction characteristics of aldehydes.

Anhydrous monomeric Glyoxal can be obtained by heating polyglyoxal in the presence of phosphorus pentoxide .

Anhydrous Glyoxal polymerises rapidly under the action of traces of water, forming a series of hydrated oligomers.

Specification of Glyoxal 40%

Glyoxal is supplied mainly as 40% aqueous solution.

Sectors of Application

Pharmaceuticals
Textile auxiliaries
Paper
Leather
Plastics
Production of Glyoxalic acid

This article further discusses the following details :

• Sectorwise Application
• Indian Scenario
• Indian Manufacturers and Units not in operation
• Import/Export details
• Assessment of Demand
• Status of consuming sectors-Pharmaceutical sector, Cross linking agent and Glyoxalic acid
• Global Scenario
• Global Manufacturers and their profiles
• Scenario in China
• Alternate Process Routes for Glyoxal
• Technology Developments
• Prognosis

Optical Brightening Agents (OBA) are organic compounds (dye based materials) used for brightening as well as whitening of fabric, paper, detergent, plastics etc.

Classification

There are several organic compounds which function as optical whitening agents and produce suitable whitening effects.

Mostly, the Optical brightening agents are derivatives of Stilbene, Biphenyl, Triazoles, Oxazoles or Imidazoles, Heterocyclics such as Coumarins, Pyrazine, Triazine and Naphthalimide.

The classification of optical brighteners can be based on their chemical structure or on its method of application.

Classification based on chemical structure

• Stilbene derivate with aromatic substitutes
• Coumarin derivatives
• 1,3-diphenyl-2-pyrazolins
• Naphtalimide
• Benzoxazole substitutes
• The products including a heteroaromatic groups

Classification based on application

Direct whiteners - Water soluble substances used mainly for the whitening of natural fibres

Disperse whiteners – Water insoluble

Like disperse dyes, the disperse whitener are applied to the coloured material either from an aqueous dispersion or can be used for mass colouration. Mainly these are used for synthetic fibres such as polyester, polyamide, acrylics, acetate silk and polyvinyl chloride.

This article further discusses the following details:

• Product application
• Important application sector
• Choice of Optical Brightening agents for best performance in some selected textile fibres/yarn
• Global Production capacity & Regionwise capacity
• Global Production
• Major producers
• Demand drivers
• Prospects

Sulfone polymers are engineering thermoplastics. Especially, their properties are stable over a wide range of temperatures. With respect to fracture toughness, the fracture energy is about 3 kJ per m2 better than 0.2 kJ per m2 for many epoxies at room temperature.

Sulfone polymers find major applications in the electrical/electronic components, medical equipment and food related industries. They can be used in millimeter wave radomes, automotive, aerospace pieces, matrixes for high performance composites, structural adhesives etc.

This article further discusses the following details :

• Types of sulfone polymers

o Polysulfone resin (PSU)
o Polyether sulfone (PES)
o Polysuper sulfone (PSS)
o Polypheylene sulfone /Polybiphenyl ether sulfone resins (PPSU)
o Polyethr sulfone ketone

• Indian producer of sulfone polymers
• Application development efforts
• Demand scenario
• Indian Imports
• Indian exports
• Prognosis

In recent times, in view of the need to maintain the competitive standards and ensure that the consumer's expectation with regard to safety and environmental standards are fully meet, the chemical companies all over the world have stepped up efforts towards development of appropriate technologies to achieve higher standards of safety, cost, energy and quality optimisation.

As part of its efforts in keeping the valued readers of Nandini Chemical Journal informed about the developments in chemical industries all over the world, Nandini Chemical Journal will publish series of articles on the above subject in the coming issues.

The first in this series of articles on the technology efforts of Sumitomo Chemical Companies was published in February 2007 issue

Some of the selected R&D efforts of Dow Chemical Companies are highlighted in this issue..

Dow is among the top global chemical players in the world. Dow’s turnover is estimated to be about US $ 49 billion and operates in 175 countries all over the world.

Dow invests around US$1 billion per annum in R&D and is increasing the R&D expenditure every year. Measured by expenditures, two-thirds of R&D efforts go toward value growth (exploring the unknown) and one-third toward value preservation (improving the known).

This article contains the following details :

• Polypropylene process technology
• Glycol process technology
• Low Pressure Oxo Process Technology
• New Applications for the process technology
• Bisphenol A - Process technology
• PTA Technology
• Alkaline Peroxide
• Fuel Cell Technology
• Catalytically Modified Polymers
• Plasma Technologies
• Phase Change Materials
• Microlayer Fabrication Technology
• Ceramics Technology
• Desalination of Water Technology
• XLA Stretch fibre
• Bio Aqueous SM Solubilization Services
• Precipitation Technologies
o Controlled Precipitation
o Evaporative Precipitation into Aqueous Solutions (EPAS)
• Cryogenic Technologies
o Spray Freezing into Liquid (SFL)
o Ultra Rapid Freezing (URF)
• Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex
• Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Liquid Deposition (APPLD)
• ZFP Technology

FLUORO CHEMICALS – HIGHLIGHTS OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Fluoro products find a range of applications in refrigeration, pharma, cookware, agriculture, electronics, semiconductor, consumer products and life sciences.

Fluoro pharmaceutical

In the drug sector, fluoro pharmaceutical intermediates are playing an important role in anaesthetics and diabetes-related drugs.

Agricultural applications:

In agriculture, 28 per cent of all crop protection active ingredients contain fluorine.

Use in semiconductor industries:

In the semiconductor industry, chips rely on perfluorocarbon gases (PFC) and about 500 tonnes per year of PFC consumption has been reported already.

This project further discusses the following developments :

• Project plans of DuPont
• Solvay forms HF venture in China
• SRF Ltd.
• Onsite fluorine supply contract
• Ozark licenses CF3 technology
• Bayer unveils fluorination technology
• Desflurane technology
• Using Fluorine to make `Designer’ Nanostructures

tonne of raw material. The deoiled cake fetches around Rs.1400 per tonne in the market. With this conversion ratio, oil costs the producer Rs.38.66 a kg. They spend another five rupees converting it into bio-diesel. In other words, the bio-diesel has to be priced at Rs.43 a litre at factory gate. State taxes are extra.

The only way that the biodiesel companies can compete in the new scenario is by ensuring that either the cost of jatropha is reduced to less than Rs.10000 per tonne or the conversion cost of five rupees is chopped substantially.

This article also discusses the following details :

• Global Price of Vegetable Oil
• Hedging Options

GREEN TEA POLYPHENOL- INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

Green Tea polyphenols is natural compound extracted from tea. It is composed of more than 30 substances containing phenolic group.

Its chemical structure consists of four types namely catechin type, flavone and flavonol type, anthocyanidin and procrypsis anthocyanidin type, phenolic acid type.

Among them, type catechin is the most present at 60% to 80% of total phenols.

In recent times, the polyphenol as a neutraceutical compound has been gaining increasing importance all over the world as an eco-friendly product in the health market. The demand is going up at substantial rate and R&D efforts in optimizing the product quality and cost parameters are taking place at feverish pace.

As an important producer of tea, India should view green tea polyphenol as a thrust area for investment and growth.

This article further discusses the following details:

• Producer’s specification
• Application details
• Recent studies
• Classification
• Source of supply
• Green Tea production
• Catechin content in Green Tea
• Extraction Methods
• Extraction technology developed by IIT, Kharagpur
• Demand Trend
• Indian Manufacturer
• Global Scenario

MASHELKAR PATENT REPORT : DISMISS THE COMMITTEE AND RECONSTITUTE IT

It is generally said that the Indian bureaucracy and political systems are inefficient and dishonest.Most of the country's problems are attributed to the inadequacies of these two agencies. But now, it appears that scientists and technologists do not fare any better.

The recent news that the Patent Report submitted to the Government of India by R.A.Mashelkar Committee have been charged with plagiarism should have shocked everyone in India.

Now that Mashelkar Committee has lost its credibility due to plagiarism charges and Dr. Mashelkar himself has withdrawn the report, both the report as well as Mashelkar Committee stands condemned .

It appears that Dr. Mashelkar has requested the government for another three months time to review the report and resubmit it. This is something that the Government of India should reject straight away.

The Government of India should dismiss the Mashelkar Committee forthwith in view of the above developments. The committee is also guilty of wasting the nation's time and resources and damaging the reputation of the entire scientific community in India. The government should reappoint another committee and review the entire matter forthwith.

The details regarding the plagiarism charges are further discussed in this article.

CHINA NEWS

This article contains the following details :

• Coal based Synthetic oil catalyst project
• HFC 134A
• Nucleotide
• Biodegradable Packaging Material Project
• p-Nitrobenzoic Aldehyde and p-Nitrobenzoic Alcohol
• Methyl Methacrylate (MMA)
• Hydrogen Fluoride
• Trimethylolpropane
• Epichlorohydrin resin
• Solar Silicon
• TDI/MDI/PC Projects of Bayer
• Coal to Chemicals Projects in China

OTHER ARTICLES

Nandini Chemical Journal, Annual subscription, 12 issues, includes airmail charges: cat # journal/journal: US $100. See Details

Visit the online edition for the highlights of the journal.

Articles from past issues of journal: cat # journal/article; via email as word doc, US $25. See List of articles