Commercialization Hurdles

Throughout previous sections of this chapter, commercialization hnrdles have been discnssed where appropriate. The issues associated with polymerization techniques or flammability performance will not be readdressed here rather, in this section we address regulatory concerns and cost issues that must be overcome to yield commercial nanocomposite products. 

Some of the environmental concerns mentioned previously fall into the realm of regnlatory concerns, and certainly these must be addressed before a polymer nanocomposite can enter the market. Given that there are commercial polymer nanocomposites currently available, it appears that these hurdles can be overcome. At the moment there do not appear to be any specific regnlatory requirements that mandate whether nanoparticles are present in a prodnct, but some of the existing broad requirements on chemical snbstances may apply. For example, the redaction of hazardous substances (RoHS) act in the EU mandates that par-ticnlar products be free of various heavy metals or particular elements. This could be a problem for natural clay nanocomposites, as they may contain trace amounts of these heavy metals, depending on where they were obtained and how they were purified after mining. It is important at this point to discuss the differences between natural and synthetic clays, as these differences may hinder commercialization. 

Since only two examples of flame retardant systems are currently available, it seems that the technology is still in its commercial infancy. However, even with the significant improvements in properties brought by polymer nanocom-posite technology, it is not always a drop-in replacement for existing materials. Further, there are times when it does not make sense to use a polymer nanocom-posite for these applications, especially when the existing material is far less 

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Because soHd acid catalyst systems offer advantages with respect to their handling and noncorrosive nature, research on the development of a commercially practical soHd acid system to replace the Hquid acids will continue. A major hurdle for soHd systems is the relatively rapid catalyst deactivation caused by fouling of the acid sites by heavy reaction intermediates and by-products. 

The controlled synthesis of polymers, as opposed to their undesired formation, is an area that has not received much academic interest. Most interest to date has been commercial, and focused on a narrow area the use ofchloroaluminate(III) ionic liquids for cationic polymerization reactions. The lack of publications in the area, together with the lack of detailed and useful synthetic information in the patent literature, places hurdles in front of those with limited loiowledge of ionic liquid technology who wish to employ it for polymerization studies. The expanding interest in ionic liquids as solvents for synthesis, most notably for the synthesis of discrete organic molecules, should stimulate interest in their use for polymer science. 

The application of biocatalytic technologies in the refining industry will be possible only if it can improve product yields and produce cleaner fuels economically. The hurdle to commercialization of the biodesulfurization process is still the activity of the biocatalyst. The reasons for this will be evident from the discussion in Chapter 3. 

CXRS entered the commercial market in the mid-to-late 1990s after a long development period. The basic principles have been known for many years, but practical development faced many hurdles. Most explosives have a crystalline structure. Because the crystals are small and randomly orientated, the structure is sometimes referred to as poly crystalline. These crystals exhibit a strong coherent scatter at certain angles that depend on the X-ray energy and the crystal lattice spacing. This coherent scatter (also called diffraction) is a property of the crystal lattice and is unrelated to... 

What, then, is the conscientious executive to do The most reasonable course for him would be to employ a heavy additional risk premium when evaluating any chemical that meets all presently known tests and that shows strong commercial potential. If the product passes even this hurdle, it may still eventually encounter regulatory difficulties, but the chances are high that it will have repaid its development cost and produced a profit for the company by the time these difficulties emerge. The impact of such a "regulatory risk premium" would be to slow—but not necessarily stop—new product development. 

Most industrialists consider innovation to be synonymous with development of a new or improved product or process that yields a profit. Under this definition, a chemical company would not consider the following activities as innovation use by the company for the first time of off-the-shelf technology a company discovery which is successfully commercialized by a competitor development and use of new engineering technologies to satisfy pollution control requirements. These industrialists emphasize the many steps involved in the innovation process in going from discovery to profit, and they consider regulatory requirements as hurdles — and perhaps necessary hurdles — along the path to successful innovation. 

If the material has passed the first development hurdles of physical properties characterization, process selection, cost projection, etc., a further stage of refinement can be embarked upon. This normally would include the preparation of one or a few preferred polymers of the family, in reasonably stable form and under procedures designed to afford reasonably clean, nearly commercial product. Material will now become available in sufficient quantity and... 

The main hurdle to the application of IDA for quantitative measurements of aroma compounds continues to be the limited commercial availability of the labeled internal standards. 

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