Units specialised

The six TRU organisations are smaller units specialising in Track Renewals work. THE CUSTOMER BASE... 

In the mid-1950s a number of new thermoplastics with some very valuable properties beeame available. High-density polyethylenes produced by the Phillips process and the Ziegler process were marketed and these were shortly followed by the discovery and rapid exploitation of polypropylene. These polyolefins soon became large tonnage thermoplastics. Somewhat more specialised materials were the acetal resins, first introduced by Du Pont, and the polycarbonates, developed simultaneously but independently in the United States and Germany. Further developments in high-impact polystyrenes led to the development of ABS polymers. 

At about the same time, an allyl resin known as CR39 was introdueed in the United States as a low-pressure laminating resin. This was followed in about 1946 with the introduction of unsaturated polyester laminating resins which are today of great importance in the manufaeture of glass-reinforced plasties. Alkyd moulding powders were introduced in 1948 and have since found specialised applications as electrical insulators. 

The market is dominated by flexible foam applications (43% in the United States) and rigid and semi-rigid foam (29%). Cast elastomers (4%) and RIM elastomers (3%) have only specialised outlets. The remaining sizeable 21% of the market cover such diverse uses as thermoplastic rubbers, surface coatings, adhesives, sealants and synthetic leathers. 

Trace element analysis has become sufficiently important, especially to industrial users, that commercial laboratories specialising in trace and ultratrace elemental analysis are springing up. One such company specialises in high-resolution glow-discharge mass spectromety , which can often go, it is claimed, to better than parts per billion. This company s advertisements also offer a service, domiciled in India, to provide various forms of wet chemical analysis which, it is claimed, is now nearly impossible to find in the United States . 

The ultimate test, short of constructing a full-scale unit, is to build a small-scale system in which each item to be incorporated in the final device is represented. Such programmes are too specialised to warrant discussion here, and are fully described in the literature... 

T-system membrane results in an interaction between the T-tubules and the SR at specialised junctions, known as excitation-contraction coupling units. Here the two membranes are finked by a foot process consisting of two Ca ion channels that function in concert. 

The research programme of the European Institute for Transuranium Elements was, from its very beginning, devoted to both basic research on advanced plutonium containing fuel and to fundamental research on actinide elements. Non-fuel actinide research in Europe started more than 20 years ago with the reprocessing of irradiated actinide samples. Since the first isolation and purification of transplutonium elements, actinide research developed steadily in close contact and cooperation with specialised laboratories in Western Europe and in the United States. 

Michael Wittmann studied law at the University of Vienna and held several positions in Austrian ministerial offices, specialising in environmental law. As legal expert of the Chemicals Policy unit, he deals with national, European and international chemicals law. In 2002, he -edited the publication "The Role of Precaution in Chemicals Policy". 

There were a number of efforts to commercialise PHA, notably by ICI in the 1980s and early 1990s, and by Monsanto in the mid 1990s. However, these attempts were largely unsuccessful due to the high cost and very limited processability and properties. In recent years, these deficiencies have been largely overcome most notably by Metabolix and by Procter Gamble s Nodax business unit, which both specialise in PHA materials development. 

The price of synthetic biodegradable polymers has come down a little during the last three years. In 2003, for example, the average price of Eastar Bio and BASF s Ecoflex was around 3.5-4.0 per kg. In 2005, the average cost of an aliphatic aromatic polyester biopolymer was between 2.75-3.65 per kg. The more specialised polymers, such as DuPont s Biomax, cost as much as 5-6 per kg. Polycaprolactones cost between 4-7 per kg. Synthetic biodegradable polymer prices are expected to fall further over time as production volumes increase and unit costs fall further. 

Biological assay (bioassay) is the process by which the activity of a substance (identified or unidentified) is measured on living material e.g. contraction of bronchial, uterine or vascular muscle. It is used only when chemical or physical methods are not practicable as in the case of a mixture of active substances, or of an incompletely purified preparation, or where no chemical method has been developed. The activity of a preparation is expressed relative to that of a standard preparation of the same substance. Biological standardisation is a specialised form of bioassay. It involves matching of material of unknown potency with an International or National Standard with the objective of providing a preparation for use in therapeutics and research. The results are expressed as units of a substance rather than its weight, e.g. insulin, vaccines. 

Tomas Chmelik, M.Sc. in economics (University of Economics, Prague) is Director of the Climate Change Department, Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic. After completing his M.Sc. degree, with major specialisation in public administration and minor specialisation in environmental economics he started to work for the Ministry of Environment, Department of Environmental Economy, Unit of Economic Instruments with responsibility for economic instruments in air,... 

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