Added value, fine chemicals

Driven by demands for increased and sustained profitability since more than 20 years there has been a worldwide shift away from traditional commodity chemicals towards high added value fine chemicals production. This can be easUiy accounted for an increased compitition in commodity chemicals. 

The different classes of chemical products will have very different added value (the difference between the selling price of the product and the purchase cost of raw materials). Commodity chemicals tend to have low added value, whereas fine and specialty chemicals tend to have high added value. Commodity chemicals tend to be produced in large volumes with low added value, while fine and specialty chemicals tend to be produced in small volumes with high added value. 

Table 2. Cost Calculations for Fine Chemicals Value-Added Structure...

There are, however, numerous appHcations forthcoming ia medium- to small-scale processiag. Especially attractive on this scale is the pharmaceutical fine chemical or high value added chemical synthesis (see Fine chemicals). In these processes multistep reactions are common, and an electroorganic reaction step can aid ia process simplification. Off the shelf lab electrochemical cells, which have scaled-up versions, are also available. The materials of constmction for these cells are compatible with most organic chemicals. 

Kuusisto, J., Tokarev, A.V., Murzina, E.V., Roslund, M.U., Mikkola, J.-P., Murzin, D., and Salmi, T. (2007) From renewable raw materials to high-value added fine chemicals - catalytic hydrogenation and oxidation of D-lactose. Catal. Today, 121, 92-99. 

The term fine chemicals is widely used (abused ) as a descriptor for an enormous array of chemicals produced at small scale and is frequently assumed to infer a significant added value of the product derived from the degree of complexity (number of functional groups, geometric isomers, and enantiomers) and precision in their manufacture. Whether the term fine chemicals refers to the finesse of the chemistry or to the small scale of manufacture is far from clear. However, in order to assist our discussion the following division can be adopted [2] ... 

An example of the value-added chain extending from commodities through fine chemicals to a pharmaceutical specialty is shown in Table 1.1. The product chosen is Pfizer s anticholesterol drug Lipitor (atorvastatin), the world s top-selling drug with sales of 12 billion in 2004. The value-added chain extends from a Ci molecule, methanol (left side of the table) all the way to a C33 molecule, atorvastatin. The structure of compound III in Table 1.1 is as follows ... 

Food and feed additives, also known as dietary supplements, are minor ingredients added to improve the product quality. Most commonly, the effects desired relate to color, flavor, nutritive value, taste, or stability in storage. The market sizes are estimated to be 20 billion each for food and for feed additives, respectively. The major customers for the food additives are the big food companies Ajinomoto, Danone, Kraft, and Nestle, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. With the exception of Ajinomoto, these companies are rarely backward-integrated. As they prefer to use natural ingredients rather than synthetic ones, they are not very important customers of the fine-chemical industry. Premixers, that is, enterprises that prepare ready-to-use mixtures of nutrients for the farmers who raise cattle, pigs, and chicken, are the main users of feed additives. 

The attractiveness of specific product categories, as discussed in the previous section, by and large defines the attractiveness of target markets as well. Besides its absolute size, the pharmaceuticals market comes first, because of its inherent elevated added value, the relatively high innovation rate, which leads to a steady demand for new products and for a manageable number of customers. The attributes for the agro fine chemicals market are similar, albeit less pronounced, specialty chemicals, in contrast, are needed by almost all industries and, therefore, virtually cannot be approached proactively. Also, the innovation rate in terms of new chemical entities is generally rather low, except in the electronic industry. 

As an illustration, Table 1.2 shows values for some representative chemical processes. The output units refer to the added-value dollar VA explained before. It can be seen that phosphoric acid has very unfavorable indices on the whole fine, being very intensive as material, energy and water consumption. Acrylonitrile produced by ammonoxidation has also poor environmental performance with respect to toxics and pollutants. Note also the large amount of C02 produced by the methanol process. The best process in the list is the acetic acid made by the carbonylation of methanol. 

Amino acids can be obtained by hydrolysis of proteins, chemical synthesis, fermentation (e.g. of sugars), and enzymatic processes [32], They serve similar purposes as proteins, but in addition, aspartic acid and glutamic acid were rated as top value-added chemicals, which can be converted to further fine chemicals [8]. Another example is the production of building blocks like ethylenediamine and butanediamine from serine and arginine, respectively [6],... 

As indicated by step 1.7, there are a number of small-volume but value-added fine chemicals, intermediates, and pharmaceuticals, where homogeneous catalytic reactions play a very important role. Some of these products, listed in Table 1.1, are optically active, and for these homogeneous catalysts exhibit almost enzymelike stereoselectivities. Asymmetric or stereoselective homogeneous catalytic reactions are discussed in Chapter 9. 

The scale of production of a fine chemical can range from a few t/a up to tens of kt/a. Two of the final intermediates in the synthesis of the world s top selling drug, the anticholesterol Lipitor , or atorvastin, are only produced on a scale of 500 t/a each. The consequence of the smaller scale and more specialist nature of these industries, is that the processes are far more likely to be batch or discontinuous. Thus process units will be flexible to produce more than one product and the product s lifetime in the market may be comparatively short, either for economic or performance reasons. However, product added value is high. 

E-trading platform Focus on highly standardized commodity chemicals Real-time auctions Financial products for risk management E-exchange Focus on intermediates, fine chemicals and specialties Auctions based on bid and ask system Additional value added services, e.g., online product testing... 

The high loading capability of large-volume CCC systems is commonly used in industry. Large amounts (gram to kilogram scale) of natural products with high added values are separated by CCC. Alkaloids, antibiotics, enzymes, macrolides, peptides, rare fatty acids, saponins, tannins, taxoids and/or precursors of Taxol , and other fine chemicals have been isolated, separated, and/or purified by preparative CCC [1]. 

It is important to develop technologies to convert photosynthesized organic products into useful substances such as fuels, feed, manure, materials for plastics and concrete, and fine chemicals which have a high added value. We have screened microalgae which produce polysaccharides. 

Batch reactors (Fig. 8.1) are usually used for the production of high added value products in limited amounts, e.g., fine chemicals and catalysts. They are also used for testing new processes that have not yet been fully developed, and for processes that are difficult to convert to continuous operation, e.g., some polymerization processes. Typical reactor volumes are in the order of 10 m and the reactor content is in the liquid state. Mechanical stirring ensures good mixing as well as sufficient heat exchange with the surroundings and, if necessary, maintains a solid catalyst in suspension. 

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