TOGETHER WITH

Good morning. A couple of weeks ago we asked whether discovering more materials or accelerating lab to full scale would lead to the greatest impact for innovation in chemicals, and the results are pretty clear:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Discovery (i.e. we need better ways to discover materials) (19 votes, 21%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Deployment (i.e. we need to go from lab to full scale faster) (73 votes, 79%)

From the condenser:
· More ethanol-to-ethylene
· Flat panel display protectors
· MOTD: ethane

More ethanol to ethylene is coming

Netherlands-based company, Syclus, selected French process technology company, Axens, to provide the technology for its proposed $140 million ethanol-to-ethylene site.

A little background:
The world produces roughly 200 million tons of ethylene each year for its later conversion into polyethylenes (HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE), other derivatives (EO, MEG, etc.), and those derivatives' derivatives (PET). Right now we get all of that ethylene by steam cracking either ethane or naphtha, and since both of those feedstocks trace their roots back to oil & gas, making sustainable ethylene-derivatives means you need to make ethylene sustainably.

Okay, so ethanol-to-ethylene?
There aren’t many sustainable feedstocks to choose from—we’re pretty much limited to stuff we can grow and the piles of waste we already produce. Conventional thinking then takes us down two potential paths: convert a small molecule into ethylene (like ethane or ethanol), or break up larger molecules (like petroleum- or vegetable-oil-based naphtha) to make ethylene. (For what it’s worth, dehydrating ethanol to make ethylene isn’t some sort of crazy new concept—it’s actually how Johann Joachim Becher, the man who discovered ethylene, made it for the first time, and Braskem has been doing it for a decade.)

Connecting the dots:
Ethanol check marks the bio-based box because we make ethanol by fermenting plant-based sugars, but the problem with ethanol dehydration isn't strictly a matter of science: ethanol frequently costs nearly as much as ethylene, so ethylene produced via this route must be sold at a premium which makes it hard to justify investment, and ethanol is produced via fermentation, so scale is eventually bottlenecked by that process and crop production.

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Mistui protects TVs in production

Japanese chemical company, Mitsui Chemicals, has officially acquired Asahi Kasei’s pellicle business.

The context you need:
Making semiconductors is a very complex and lengthy process, but for the sake of this paragraph, just think of it as a repetitive process of adding a layer, removing parts of that layer, and then adding another layer. The key step is targeting which parts to remove, and we do this via photolithography: we shine lasers onto a polymer layer (aka photoresist) that sits on top of the silicon wafer, the light from the laser alters the properties of that photoresist, which either prevents or enables the photoresist to be dissolved leaving a design behind.

Okay, so what’s a pellicle?
If a dust particle falls onto that photoresist, it blocks the laser light, which leads to imperfections in circuit design that can’t be fixed (i.e. that part of the chip won’t work). To prevent this, we place a nanometer-thin and transparent protector over the chip, which prevents dust from collecting on the photoresist and instead collects dust outside of the focal plane (here’s a diagram). That nanometer-thin and transparent protector is called a pellicle, and that’s what Mitsui now makes at Asahi’s old plant in Nobeoka, Japan.

Zooming out:
In case you hadn’t heard, the majority of the world’s electronic materials (including, but not limited to, semiconductors) are produced in Asia. Both Mitsui Chemicals and Asahi Kasei have been making pellicles for decades, but Asahi specialized in pellicles for flat panel displays (LCD and OLED), and now Mitsui is diversified. It’s a notably obscure example of a material input to a complex process—that nanometer-thin material used for these pellicles could be some sort of paralyne (downstream from paraxylene) or some sort of fused silica.

Some more headlines

• Baker Hughes is supplying the liquefaction trains for a south Texas LNG Project

• Euro Manganese selected Wood as its EPC partner to build a manganese recycling plant

• IndianOil and Praj formed a bio-based fuels joint venture in India

• Some researchers think nylon should be made by combining electrochemical and microbial pathways

• A couple of companies proposed a CO2 transport pipeline between Germany and Austria

Molecule of The Day

Today's MOTD is a dear friend, ethane.

While Michael Faraday was able to synthesize the molecule back in 1834, it wasn't until this English chemist found it inside Pennsylvanian crude oil that we realized how much of it is out there.

Today, all of the ethane produced is either a component of natural gas or as a byproduct of petroleum refining. All of that ethane (with a few exceptions) is used as a steam cracking feedstock.

The main companies producing all of this ethane are the ones pumping it out of the ground upstream and the natural gas processors who supply the petrochemical companies.

The reboiler

• Infographic: Take a look at the molecules that make trash smell bad.

• Book: How can you expect to understand the chemical industry without knowing its history? Start with Fred Aftalion's introduction.

• Podcast: Check out this episode featuring Dr. Tina Tosukhowong of PTT Global Chemical on her career and stance on sustainability.

The bottoms

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