Advanced polymers help transportation industry react to change

Chart this decade’s production figures from the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers, and you will need plenty of space on the Y-axis. Total output has climbed from 2.03 million vehicles in 2011, to 2.53 in 2017, a 20 percent increase.

Absolute growth is not the only change coming to India’s transportation industry. Last August the government made waves when it announced its goal of an all-electric vehicle future for India by 2030. Will it come to pass? At this point, it is difficult to predict, but it is a safe bet that change will remain constant in the industry.

Where will the changes take India’s transportation industry, and how can advanced polymers help manufacturers react to change? Consider three trends in the global automotive industry.

Transition to electric vehicles:  Whether all vehicles will transition to electric vehicles in the coming decades is debatable, but there will be many more electric vehicles sold in the coming years. “The advent of electric vehicles will create many new opportunities for polymers, in under-the-hood applications but also in vehicle interiors,” said Kelly Wessner, transportation-marketing director, Specialty Engineered Materials, at PolyOne.

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Popular tool for drug discovery just got 10 times faster

WEST LAFAYETTE, US: Researchers at Purdue University have just made high throughput screening, a process often used in drug discovery, 10 times faster than previous methods.

High-throughput screening uses robotics, data processing software, liquid handling devices and sensitive detectors to quickly conduct millions of chemicals, genetic and pharmacological tests. It allows researchers to identify active compounds, antibodies or genes that modulate a particular biomolecular pathway, which is especially useful for drug discovery.

“The area of high-throughput library screening reached a plateau, where the fastest screens took about eight seconds per target. If you can reduce that time by a factor of ten, which is what we’re reporting, then you can potentially do library screens that might have taken months in days,” said Graham Cooks, the Henry Hass distinguished professor of analytical chemistry at Purdue, who led the research.

Cooks’ lab combined desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) mass spectrometry, a method of making ions from solid samples, with robotic sampling technologies to create a faster screening process. The research was published in the journal Chemical Science.

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Looking to the sun to produce hydrogen fuel

LIVERMORE, US: When Lawrence Livermore scientist Tadashi Ogitsu leased a hydrogen fuel-cell car in 2017, he knew that his daily commute would change forever. There are no greenhouse gases that come out of the tailpipe, just a bit of water vapour.

The market for hydrogen cars is growing. According to a recent report by the California Energy Commission and the California Air Resources Board, the state is now home to 31 hydrogen fuel stations.

The next challenge is making hydrogen fuel cost-effective and sustainable.

“Hydrogen can be produced from multiple sources, but the holy grail is to make it from water and sunlight,” said Ogitsu, a staff scientist in the Quantum Simulations Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

He also is a steering committee member for the HydroGEN Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium, a Lab-led consortium in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Materials Network. It is focused on hydrogen production from water via advanced high and low-temperature electrolysis, as well as photoelectrochemical and solar thermochemical processes and is managed through the Fuel Cell Technologies Office of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).  

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New bio-renewable process could help ‘green’ plastic

MADISON, US: When John Wesley Hyatt patented the first industrial plastic in 1869, his intention was to create an alternative to the elephant tusk ivory used to make piano keys. But this early plastic also sparked a revolution in the way people thought about manufacturing: What if we weren’t limited to the materials nature had to offer?

Over a century later, plastics are an abundant part of daily life. But these plastics are often derived from petroleum, contributing to reliance on fossil fuels and driving harmful greenhouse gas emissions. To change that, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center scientists are trying to take the pliable nature of plastic in another direction, developing new and renewable ways of creating plastics from biomass.

Using a plant-derived solvent called GVL (gamma-Valerolactone), University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of chemical and biological engineering James Dumesic and his team have developed an economical and high-yielding way of producing furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). One of 12 chemicals the US Department of Energy calls critical to forging a “green” chemical industry, FDCA is a necessary precursor to a renewable plastic called polyethylene furanoate (PEF) as well as to a number of polyesters and polyurethanes.

The researchers published their findings in the journal Science Advances.

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Medical grade TPE for direct contact with medications

By Josef Neuer

A new ophthalmic squeeze dispenser (OSD) from Aptar Pharma, a leader in drug delivery systems, incorporates several functional components manufactured using a newly developed grade in the THERMOLAST® M family of thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) for medical applications from KRAIBURG TPE. Both companies are headquartered in Germany and have multiple manufacturing locations around the world.

The TPE components come into direct contact with the medical eye drop formulation. Because of this, Aptar Pharma requires the use of materials classified as medical grade plastics in compliance with the stringent regulations for the primary packaging of sensitive medications.

Dry eyes can be caused by various medical conditions, such as diabetes, rheumatism and thyroid disorders, and also by draughts or contact lenses, and even prolonged exposure to computer monitors. Moisturising eye drops are a time-proven remedy. However, they seldom contain preservatives, which cause allergic reactions in many people. Due to its microbiological safety as well as easy and precise dosing capabilities, the ophthalmic squeeze dispenser (OSD) from Aptar Pharma has been in widespread use as a dispenser for eye drops that contain no preservatives for several years.

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Astatine-Element information, properties, uses and facts

Astatine is a chemical compound with symbol At and atomic number 85, which is a radioactive element. Astatine is named after a Greek word astatos, meaning unstable. It is the member of block p and period 6 of the periodic table and it belongs to halogens family. It is one among the rarest naturally found on the earth. Even after decades of discovery, research only little has been known about astatine. Astatine was discovered in 1940 by scientists Dale Corson, Kenneth McKenzie and Emilio Segre.

Astatine Properties

Astatine breaks down very soon, thus not allowing much experimentation. Therefore very less properties are known till date for astatine.

• Melting point: 302 degree Celsius, boiling point: 337 degree Celsius.
• Astatine is highly toxic because of its high radioactivity.
• Electronegativity according to Pauling: 2.2, its phase at STP is solid.
• Mass number of astatine is 210, which is the most stable isotope of astatine.
• It has covalent radius of 150pm and Van der Waals radius of 202pm.

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Everything about Acid Rain you need to learn

Acid rain is the rain or any other form of precipitation which is generally acidic, means which has exalted levels of hydrogen ions. The corrosive effect of acidic or polluted air was noted in the 17th century on limestone and marble by John Evelyn. Robert Angus Smith was the first in 1852, who showcased the relationship between acid rain and pollution in the atmosphere in Manchester. The etymology acid rain was coined by Robert Angus Smith in 1872.

Emissions of chemicals resulting in Acidification:

The most crucial gas leading to acidification is sulfur dioxide.

Natural phenomena:

The dominant natural process that injects acidic gases to the atmosphere are volcanoes emissions. For example, Laguna Caliente crater fumaroles of Poas Volcano develop extremely large amount of acid rain with high acidity of around 2 pH. Gases producing acids are also formed by some biological processes that appears on the land, wetlands and in the oceans. Dimethyl sulfide is the main biological source of sulfur composed compounds.

Important source of fixed nitrogen is nitric acid found in rainwater and it is also formed in the atmosphere because of electrical activities like lightning.

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