R D work

P. Shimizu (LaPorte-Davison, Inc.) What are the important and likely areas of future R D work on methanation vis a vis catalyst development, process development, or whatever ... 

Concurrent with this growth have been business and societal driving forces that have also influenced the R D work place. These driving forces include... 

Calculations of economic profitability can only be predictive in the phase of process development, before a plant is on stream for a long time. Therefore, individual components of costs and market evaluations will bear some uncertainty. This uncertainty is relatively high for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. The impact of these uncertainties on the profitability of a process may be quantified by a sensitivity analysis. This analysis provides information about the sensitivity of the process economics to changes in parameters relevant for the profitability (investment costs, price and consumption of raw materials, utility unit costs, product value and demand, etc.), and therefore on the reliability of the result of the economic evaluation. In the early stages of process development, a high sensitivity indicates the areas requiring attention for continued R D work. 

The characteristics of the coatings Industry are such that most companies market many lines of products and within each line there are many individual products, each containing different ingredients. Usually the revenue from each product or each product line can not justify using this modeling/simulation approach in problem solving, because of the extent of technical efforts required. To be cost effective in our industry, only problems which cut across product lines justify the use of this approach. The two examples discussed here are selected to illustrate the types of problems which are amenable to this approach and the advantages and weaknesses of this approach in R. D. work. 

The modeling/simulation activity has been ongoing in our laboratory for more than a decade. It is now an accepted approach in R. D. work. Discussed below are the factors, the author believes, which have contributed to Our success in introducing modeling/simulation approach in our laboratory ... 

Atlantic Research Corporation has four patents related to fossil fuel, which have resulted from its R D work ... 

US activities under the Hydrogen from Eossil Euels Program, provide a good indication of key R D work to improve the production of hydrogen from coal gasification ... 

Extensive R D work across the board on hydrogen production and storage and on fuel cells, focussing on PEM, MCFC and SOFC. 

HFC R D work across the spectrum of fuel cell types and auxiliary components. Focus on PEM and large-scale MCFC and SOFC, and on micro DMFCs for portable applications. 

A controversial issue is the ownership of IP arising from the cooperation between customer and supplier. The customer holds the position that all IPRs resulting from a joint project belong to him. His arguments are that (1) without his input there would have been no invention anyhow and (2) that he has paid for the development of the IP, either directly by funding the supplier s R D work or indirectly through the price that he pays for the product. The supplier maintains that IP is an essential prerequisite for her business. If she cannot advance her know-how, she will drop out of business sooner or later. Also, the customer would not have entrusted her with a project, if he had not been attracted by the supplier s know-how. These opposite views are a critical element in contract negotiations and can become a deal breaker. 

R D work Worker-months spent vs. worker-months needed... 

New storage techniques still being researched will allow underground storage facilities to be developed in areas which geology does not permit the use of traditional storage facilities [14], This is the case for caverns in thin salt layers and lined rock caverns. In addition a lot of R D works have been made also to improve operation, maintenance and optimisation of existing UGS facilities. 

New R D works are still underway in order to solve the past... 

In addition to the above technical improvement and new technologies to emerge, some UGS owners operating several UGS facilities (like Gaz de France operating 13 UGS facilities in France, 6 in Germany and involve in 3 others UGS facilities in Slovak Republic) have done R D works in order to solve the technical and economical optimisation problem due to the multiplicity of available sites [18] [19] [20] ... 

Nonetheless, this coupling is a mandatory requirement to assess and simulate correctly the overall performance of a facility and must be associated with satisfactory performance levels to carry out multi-facility optimisation. Thus, and to meet the targeted problem, R D works have been done last years in order to develop dedicated new tools (ex in Gaz de France) using, at the beginning, simplified models both for the subsurface and gas treatment facilities modelling. 

After years of experiments and the nonetheless effective use of these tools making it possible to refine and systematically optimise control of facilities, the tools due to increased performance and possibilities made available by software and other computer equipment, has been improved by increasing the calculation horizon, beyond two gas years by using adapted models (closer to classic reservoir models by taking into account a simplified physical representation). At the present stage with R D works still continuing, they now include more and more complexity (risk management, stochastic simulations, etc), and works are focused on ... 

Rekhter, M.D., Simari, R.D., Work, C.W., Nabel, G.J., Nabel, E.G. and Gordon, D. (1998) Gene transfer into normal and atherosclerotic human blood vessels, (lire. Res. 82, 1243-1252. 

The R D Work Needed to Define the Synthesis Methodology Before the IND Filing (including solvent, raw material and intermediate quality considerations)... 

The iterative nature of the work to define the last process step also applies to the R D work needed to define the synthesis methodology for the key steps leading to the last process step. 

The process steps up to compound XV were the subject of disclosure in a Zambon patent.18 The Zambon patent was part of a family of patents that Zambon was to build up over time, in both the United States and Europe, covering its process R D work. Claim 1 in Zambon s patent, covering the process to compound XIV is provided to illustrate the breadth and complexity of their coverage. It can be adduced that compound XVI in Claim 1 embraces the key intermediate XIV. Claim 1 reads as follows ... 

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