High-profit margin products

These products aim primarily to provide a boost to mental energy or buzz . They are marketed as pick-me-ups , and command a high profit margin. An impressive list of ingredients is essential for credibility and typical components include caffeine, taurine, glucuronolactone, inositol, maltodextrin, vitamins and herbal extracts such as guarana, ginseng and schizandra. 

Scale-up, even from laboratory batch to commercial batch operations, is very difficult and can not be totally predicted by tendencies or rules that are obtained as results of systematic variations of assumptions in model equations. As a result, vendors maintain an often extensive test facility, potentially with differently sized equipment (see Section 11.2) to more accurately predict the behavior of the commercial system. Particularly in the more regulated industries, which process materials such as food and pharmaceuticals with high profit margins, a new trend is towards tolling operations (see Sections 11.2 and 14.1) either during the development phase or for the manufacturing of an intermediate or a particular final product during its entire life. 

On the other hand, specialty polymers are produced in smaller quantities, in batch or semibatch processes, and have high profit margins per weight unit. They require high investment in R D in order to offer significant advantages over existing products for specific applications. 

Batch production is also useful for seasonal items, products for which it is difficult to forecast demand, for a trial mn for production, or products that have a high-profit margin. 

Commodity chemical producers have varying records of performance in appHcations research. It is usually high on the priority Hst when the product is stiU evolving, eg, low density polyethylene in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In times of pinched profit margins, these services often have been dropped, sometimes to be reinstituted, especially if totally new uses appeared. 

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