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Why Chinese aluminum producers emit so much of some of the world’s most damaging greenhouse gases
More than half of the aluminum in the world is produced in China, but it is responsible for 81 percent of the industry’s emissions of PFCs. Simple automation could go a long way toward cutting them.
Top Story
Why American aluminum plants emit far more climate pollution than some of their counterparts abroad
Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) threaten “the public health and welfare of current and future generations,” according to a 2009 determination by the EPA as part of a sweeping “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases. But the EPA does not regulate PFCs.
Study questions effectiveness of carbon to filter all firefighting foam chemicals.
About two dozen chemicals related to PFOS and PFOA also can be found in water contaminated by firefighting foam, and those chemicals slip through carbon treatment faster than the other two perfluorinated compounds.
As dozens of communities across the country face PFOS and PFOA contamination of their drinking water, many are turning to a technology called granular activated carbon to help filter the toxic chemicals -- including three heavily impacted towns in Bucks and Montgomery counties.
The military and local water authorities in Horsham, Warminster and Warrington are spending millions of dollars to install 20-foot tall towers of carbon at numerous drinking wells.
But a new study from the Colorado School of Mines raises concerns about the effectiveness of this progress. About two dozen chemicals related to PFOS and PFOA also can be found in water contaminated by firefighting foam, and those chemicals slip through carbon treatment faster than the other two perfluorinated compounds. This means the chemicals could get into drinking water if a water authority isn’t looking for them.
“If you’re treating for PFOS or PFOA only, a lot of these other chemicals are going to break through the system,” said Chris Higgins, a professor of environmental engineering at the Colorado college and the study's lead researcher. “That is not to say that carbon does not work for these chemicals … it does work but it doesn’t work as effectively.”
For the analysis, Higgins and other researchers collected a water sample from an undisclosed location that was contaminated by firefighting foams. In addition to PFOS and PFOA, the most well-known members of this chemical family, Higgins’ team found at least 28 other PFCs in the contaminated water sample.
Higgins’ team ran the chemicals through activated carbon and they were alarmed by what they found. A chemical called PFHxS and other chemicals -- including some similar to the pesticide Sulfluramid -- “broke through” the carbon filtering material faster than PFOS and PFOA, meaning that they could get into water despite the filtration process.
“It absolutely could be concerning,” Higgins said of the findings.
Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that many PFCs haven’t been studied much, if at all. Because of that, Higgins said, there’s no way to judge how the study amounts compared to other contaminated sites or what levels are safe.
“We don’t know their concentrations,” Higgins said. “I don’t think they’re super toxic and are going to (lead to acute health effects), but we don’t know the toxicity.”
Higgins said he hopes the findings trigger government action to learn more about the chemicals.
Arlene Blum, a chemistry researcher at the University of California Berkeley, said, “The big picture is that there are 3,000 or more related chemicals in this class … and they all share a quality that they never break down in the environment.”
Effectiveness of carbon
Experts say carbon is a standard treatment in many cases of water contamination.
“It’s simple, fast … and very cost-effective,” said Eva Steinle-Darling, an environmental engineer with Carollo Engineers in Austin, Texas. “For an emergency response … being able to bring (online) some of those wells a utility may need to serve the basic needs of the community, carbon is fantastic.”
Steinle-Darling said water utilities will often take a year or two to evaluate the effectiveness of carbon before deciding on a permanent solution. She said the Colorado study means utilities must be “aware” of the lesser known compounds as they gauge carbon’s effectiveness.
Most large carbon filtration systems, including those being installed locally, pass water through one carbon filtration tower, then test it for the chemicals, and then pass it through a second tower before it’s ready for drinking. When the filter in the first tower becomes saturated with the chemicals, they’re caught by the second tower and the carbon in the first unit is replaced.
This two-tiered approach may not be as effective as previously thought, Higgins said, based on his research and other studies.
Complicating the matter, Steinle-Darling said, is that widespread concerns over PFOS and PFOA didn’t occur until several years ago, and many utilities were caught off guard when the EPA lowered its advised safe limit for the chemicals in May 2016.
“It’s rare in the water industry to get this sort of surprise from the EPA,” she said. “What we’ve been seeing recently is a lot of work from the carbon manufacturers to develop products that are more effective.”
Nora Stockhausen, a vice president of municipal business with Calgon Carbon, the Pittsburgh company that has won contracts to install filtration systems locally, said her company is doing that. She added that each case of contamination is unique and may require customized systems.
Local implications
Carbon filtration is a large component of local plans to filter contaminated water, but it's not the only defense.
Sixteen public wells in Warminster, Horsham and Warrington have been taken offline for exceeding the 70 part per trillion (ppt) safety limit recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency. Those two chemicals are the only two perflourinated compounds that have such an advisory from the EPA.
The military has agreed to pay to install carbon filtration systems for those wells. Some have been installed already. Other wells in the three systems showed some levels of the chemicals, but weren't considered contaminated by the military because the levels were below 70 ppt.
However, the three water suppliers decided in 2016 to implement plans to lower PFOS and PFOA to non-detectable levels, which means just a few parts per trillion. Those plans are primarily being accomplished through buying large amounts of water from the North Wales Water Authority, whose water hasn't shown detectable amounts of the chemicals.
As of May, 70 percent of the water in the Warrington utility’s affected Eastern District came from North Wales. In Horsham, five wells with filters, combined with the water from NWWA represent 86 percent of Horsham's average daily demand; 55 percent of that comes from North Wales. And Warminster gets all its water from the North Wales system, according to Warminster Municipal Authority manager Tim Hagey.
The military has agreed to pay approximately $38 million for carbon filtration systems, water purchases, and to rectify contaminated private wells. That leaves the water authorities estimating an additional $42 million in short- and long-term costs to pay for the non-detectable plans, which the military hasn't agreed to finance.
This news organization emailed the Colorado study to the leaders of three local water authorities.
Hagey said the utility is aware and “very concerned” about the existence of PFCs other than PFOS and PFOA. He and Tina O'Rourke, business manager for the Horsham authority, said they constantly monitor their systems and change the filters when PFOA starts breaking through.
Christian Jones, director of Warrington Water and Sewer, said the his utility is installing its first carbon filtratrion system. Wells contaminated above 70 ppt in Warrington remain offline.
Private water supplier Aqua Pennsylvania, which serves a number of communities in Bucks and Montgomery counties, said this week it would install and test carbon filtration systems on contaminated wells in Hatboro and Chalfont. Chris Crockett, chief environmental officer for Aqua, said the company has taken a very proactive approach, testing dozens of its wells regularly.
When tests on one Hatboro well and one Chalfont well showed levels approaching the EPA safe limit last year, they were taken offline. Crockett said the company will install temporary filters on those wells this summer to test the effectiveness of the carbon. If it’s effective, the wells could ultimately serve as backups in an emergency, such as a drought. If not, the company could consider other options.
“This is kind of an insurance policy,” Crockett said, adding that Aqua was worried about the pace the military was taking to address the contamination. “We want to make sure we’re ready in case there’s a (contaminated well) we need to take action on,” he said.
Crockett said some neighbors of the Hatboro and Chalfont wells will likely see construction this summer but shouldn’t be alarmed. He said the military has not formally claimed responsibility for the Hatboro well and that no suspected source for the Chalfont well has been identified.
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Kyle Bagenstose: 215-949-4211; email: kbagenstose@calkins.com; Twitter: @KyleBagenstose
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Despite instability in US health care, health care sustainability is solid.
Environmentally responsible practices aren’t simply “nice to have” add-ons for good times. They’re integral to reducing operating costs and creating better patient outcomes.
Environmentally responsible practices aren’t simply “nice to have” add-ons for good times. They’re integral to reducing operating costs and creating better patient outcomes.
WRITER
Gary Cohen
@HCWithoutHarm
Co-founder and president, Health Care Without Harm
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March 17, 2017 — Mercury used to be commonplace in a variety of products used in health care settings, including thermometers, cleaning agents and electronic devices, such as fluorescent lamps and computer equipment. Mercury is a dangerous toxin that can be harmful to humans, including to the brain and kidneys. It can be absorbed through cuts and abrasions in the skin. Studies show that mercury makes its way into our nation’s rivers, lakes, streams and drinking water, jeopardizing human health and the environment. Twenty-five years ago health care leaders across the nation worked to remove mercury from operations, and they have succeeded in significantly phasing out the use of the chemical, replacing it with safe, cost-effective alternatives.
Since then, progress on health care sustainability has continued. Today we’re seeing efforts to tackle root causes and complex, sectorwide problems like climate change and greening the supply chain — reducing health care’s impact on the environment and the environment’s impact on public health.
However, as political winds shift at the federal level, some are questioning whether advancements in sustainability can continue. Can health care afford sustainability when the very business model that funds health care is in flux? Or is sustainability simply a “nice to have” initiative for good times that must be cut when the federal insurance market changes?
The truth is, the benefits delivered from environmental initiatives are far too connected to health care’s mission and operations for the industry to change course. In fact, because sustainability strategies reduce operating costs and create better patient outcomes, many hospitals and health systems are doubling down on them, hoping the gains they reap will position them to weather market changes to come.
Recognizing climate change as one of the greatest health issues of our time, U.S. hospitals are stepping up efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
It is true that some sustainability efforts are expensive, and if cost cutting becomes necessary, they may fall by the wayside. However, many commitments to sustainability in key areas are likely to continue. These include cost-saving initiatives like reducing waste reduction, conserving water, boosting energy efficiency and serving healthy food. The latest data and trends compiled in the 2016 Sustainability Benchmark Report from Practice Greenhealth — an international coalition of organizations, hospitals and health partners I founded and for which I serve as president — show that the push for green health care has never been stronger. Below are a few highlights.
Clean energy moving mainstream. Recognizing climate change as one of the greatest health issues of our time, U.S. hospitals are stepping up efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Our report shows that over the past three years, the percent of facilities that have a written plan to mitigate climate change has nearly doubled.
From a financial perspective, reducing energy consumption nearly always pencils out: Because hospitals operate 24/7, a typical hospital’s annual energy bill runs into the millions, depending on size and location. A growing number of facilities are moving beyond energy efficiency to renewable energy sources to save money and reduce carbon emissions. According to our report, the percentage of facilities that generate or purchase renewable energy has increased 82 percent in the past three years. These hospitals are reaping financial savings over time, and with the advent of power purchase agreements, many hospitals can get a decades-long guaranteed return from renewable energy with no upfront installation costs. By moving away from fossil fuels, these facilities also align with their health missions, reducing direct health care costs associated with asthma attacks, chronic bronchitis and other health problems linked to power plant emissions.
New strategies driving waste reduction. Waste is one of the most visible environmental issues associated with hospitals and health care systems, both in terms of the quantity of waste generated and the complexity of managing it appropriately. Waste reduction will continue to be a key area of focus for hospitals, because it produces substantial cost savings.
Hospitals are realizing cost savings from preventing food waste up front and managing it on the back end through efforts like composting or food donation programs.
Many hospitals have implemented recycling programs that reduce waste and reduce their extremely high disposal costs. (Medical waste disposal costs can be nearly five times those for traditional waste.) According to our data, leading hospitals are routinely achieving a 30 percent recycling rate.
With up to 25 percent of a hospital’s total waste coming from food, a growing number of facilities are targeting food waste. Hospitals are realizing cost savings from preventing food waste up front and managing it on the back end through efforts like composting or food donation programs. Because rotting food in landfills produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas, food waste reduction is also a climate mitigation strategy.
Higher demand for sustainable products. The products that health care providers buy have environmental and human health impacts that often aren’t considered in traditional purchasing processes. Products like furniture, bedding and medical supplies can contain toxins that are harmful to patients when in use and harmful to the environment when discarded. Because of this, we have found more and more hospitals are using “environmentally preferable purchasing.”
The demand for furniture free from toxic flame-retardants is a powerful example. In recent years, several major health care systems have pushed suppliers to provide furniture without this harmful chemical that’s linked to reproductive problems, cancer and developmental delays. This has resulted in a reported reduction in the cost of furniture for some hospitals, while others report that the switch to furniture free from toxic flame-retardants is now cost neutral. In 2016, the percent of hospitals prioritizing furniture and medical furnishings free of halogenated flame retardants, formaldehyde, perfluorinated compounds and PVC grew by more than 55 percent from the previous year.
Our data reveal how deep and wide health care’s efforts in sustainability are, and how embedded these kinds of actions are in the very business model.
As our knowledge of the hazards of certain commonly used chemicals found in traditional medical supplies and products grows, more health care facilities are considering environment and human health in every purchasing decision and allocating a growing percentage of their budgets to sustainable products and services. As result of this demand, we are seeing market transformation — more of these products have become available at the volumes necessary for large buyers to purchase, while costs are going down. Our hope is that just as public health and health care changed the conversation and behavior around tobacco and mercury across multiple industries, health care will now drive change back into the supply chain for other large buyers of products and services, including schools, governments and universities.
Hospitals Will Continue to Lead
Although health care is currently in flux, it isn’t running from environmental stewardship. Our data reveal how deep and wide health care’s efforts in sustainability are, and how embedded these kinds of actions are in the very business model. We believe health care will remain on the forefront of sustainability because it’s good business, it’s good for communities and it’s better for people’s health.
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CLF says legal action possible against Coakley Landfill Group.
North Hampton, Greenland and Rye residents are worried chemicals leaching from the landfill will contaminate their drinking water wells.
PORTSMOUTH — The Conservation Law Foundation official has not ruled out taking legal action against the Coakley Landfill Group.
Tom Irwin, vice president and director of CLF New Hampshire, said "it's an option we've not dismissed" when asked during an editorial board meeting Wednesday if it's something CLF has considered. "I'll just say it's a possibility at this time," Irwin added.
Jeff Barnum, CLF's Great Bay-Piscataqua waterkeeper, said he believes there's a link "between the (Pease) Air Force Base and the Coakley landfill" when it comes to the PFCs found in residential wells.
He noted that after CLF found PFCs in surface water near the landfill at levels higher than the EPA's groundwater standard, the N.H. Department of Environmental Services took its own tests and found even higher levels. Barnum contends "there's no question" the PFCs are coming from the landfill, a Superfund cleanup site in North Hampton and Greenland.
DES is testing wells around the landfill to try to map the plume of contaminants, which includes PFCs found above the EPA's advisory level in monitoring wells and in residential wells below the level, and 1,4-dioxane below the advisory level, which the EPA said is a likely carcinogen.
North Hampton, Greenland and Rye residents are worried chemicals leaching from the landfill will contaminate their drinking water wells.
The 27-acre landfill in Greenland and North Hampton accepted waste from 1972 to 1982 and then incinerator waste until 1985. The CLG includes Portsmouth, North Hampton, Newington and several private companies, mostly trash haulers and trash generators.
Barnum also believes water around the Rye landfill adjacent Coakley and the Jones Avenue landfill in Portsmouth should be tested for PFCs "out of an abundance of caution."
"The Jones Avenue landfill also took similar material, the incinerator ash, from the Portsmouth waste to energy operation at Pease," he said. "It's worthy of further investigation for sure."
Barnum called for research to determine if PFCs are bioaccumulating in fish as PCBs do. He pointed to advisories telling nursing and pregnant women not to eat some types of fish "because they're going to have high levels of PCBs." The EPA describes PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, as "synthetic chemicals which are no longer produced in the United States, but are still found in the environment." The EPA has said they are a "probable carcinogen."
The city of Portsmouth closed the Haven well at Pease International Tradeport in May 2014 after the Air Force found levels of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS, 12.5 times higher than what was then the EPA's provisional health advisory. The EPA classifies PFOS and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, as "contaminants of emerging concern" because of their potential harm to humans. PFOS and PFOA are a class of perfluorochemicals.
EPA officials have stated health studies indicate "exposure to PFOA and PFOS over certain levels may result in adverse health effects," including harming the development of infants, liver damage, increasing cholesterol and even increasing the risk of cancer.
Barnum said he was pleased EPA and DES officials said they are going to develop a surface water standard for PFCs, but added, "when that's going to occur is anybody's guess."
He also believes despite claims by some regulators that groundwater and surface water are different systems, they are "intimately connected." "When you have a drought, your dug well or your drilled well in the aquifer doesn't come back until it's recharged with surface water," Barnum said. The suggestion, he added, that "surface water standards should be a great deal higher than drinking water standard makes absolutely no sense."
Irwin also said CLF is opposed to the DES proposal to remove the impaired status designation from Great Bay. Several Seacoast municipalities have or are building new or upgraded sewer plants in large part to reduce nitrogen discharge into Great Bay. Portsmouth's upgraded plant is expected to cost as much as $100 million.
"We will be submitting comments on Friday objecting to that," Irvin said of removing the impaired designation. "We think there is a strong scientific case and basis for retaining nitrogen impairment for Great Bay and I fully expect the EPA will agree with that."
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Polar bear cubs at high risk from toxic industrial chemicals, despite bans.
A new study shows polar bears’ bodies hold toxic chemicals originally made in distant factories, substances that threaten adult bears’ health at a level 100 times greater than the acceptable threshold of risk for humans. For cubs, the risk is more than 1,000 times that threshold.
Levels in young animals elevated to 1,000 times the acceptable amount in people
By Deirdre Lockwood on January 23, 2017
Credit: Emma Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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Polar bears are facing trouble inside and out. The animals are losing habitat as global warming melts sea ice. Now a study shows bears’ bodies hold toxic chemicals originally made in distant factories, substances that threaten adult bears’ health at a level 100 times greater than the acceptable threshold of risk for humans. For cubs, the risk is more than 1,000 times that threshold.
These risks have remained high, particularly in cubs, despite restrictions or bans on many of these chemicals more than a decade ago. Whereas the restrictions have reduced overall pollutant levels in cubs, the pace of reduction is being slowed by more recently produced chemicals that are not yet banned, says the study, which was published online in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry on January 5. “There is definitely a cause for concern,” says Melissa McKinney, a polar bear researcher at the University of Connecticut who was not involved in the study. She says this and other recent research “strongly suggest there’s a very high likelihood of toxicological risk from polar bears’ exposure.” The chemicals could be especially harmful to bears’ ability to reproduce.
These persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, come from industry and reach the Arctic via air or ocean currents. The compounds include older chemicals like PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), whose production peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and relatively newer ones including perfluorinated chemicals, which are used in water-resistant fabric coatings and firefighting foam. The pollutants have been linked with reproductive and immune problems in the bears as well as cancer, and their chemical structures make them nearly impossible for organisms to degrade.
Bears accumulate high levels of the chemicals because they are top predators: the compounds build up through the food chain, in plants, fish and finally seals—the bears’ main food source. Many of the compounds are soluble in fat and concentrate there, giving bears a hefty dose of the pollutants when they eat seal blubber. And then the chemicals reach cubs via their mothers’ milk.
For the study, researchers surveyed the literature for levels of 19 POPs in Arctic wildlife, found over a 40-year period.The scientists estimated the bears’ daily exposure to the chemicals based on concentrations in their food—seals for adult bears and milk for nursing cubs. Then the scientists estimated the risk to the bears by comparing these daily exposure amounts with the acceptable daily intake for humans established by the World Health Organization and other agencies. (The toxic effects of the compounds appear similar in polar bears and humans, although the sensitivity of the bears to particular amounts is uncertain.)
Between 1985 and 2010 the overall risk in cubs declined by 30 percent because many of the older chemicals were banned under an international treaty that took effect in 2004. Despite this progress, chemicals produced more recently are keeping the risk high. One of these recent entries is perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, which has been linked with cancer and has a high tendency to accumulate in the liver. This compound, used to make the fabric protector Scotchgard, peaked in production in the 1990s; today it is restricted but not completely banned. Its levels in adult bears increased exponentially until about 2006, and have since begun to decline after a phaseout of PFOS by Scotchgard manufacturer 3M. Still, the risk to bears remains high because the chemical is toxic at very low concentrations. In 1985 PFOS accounted for about 20 percent of the chemical risk found in polar bear cubs. By 2010, this proportion had climbed to 50 percent.
And replacements for PFOS are now turning up in the animals. An alternative called F-53B, made in China and used in chrome plating, has been found in the bears recently, says Derek Muir, an environmental chemist at Environment Canada, and studies indicate it too is toxic and highly persistent
Given these trends, it is urgent to ban PFOS, says Sara Villa of the University of Milano–Bicocca, an author of the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry study, and to continue monitoring new chemicals that arise in the Arctic. Although environmental regulations have begun to limit the effects of pollution, she says, the risk the bears face is still far too great.
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C&EN year in review.
As 2016 draws to a close, C&EN is taking stock of the year’s biggest moments in chemistry.
TOP HEADLINES OF 2016 TOP RESEARCH OF 2016 PHARMA YEAR IN REVIEW LOOK BACK AT 2006 PREVIOUS YEARS
Chemical & Engineering News YEAR IN REVIEW2016
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As 2016 draws to a close, C&EN; is taking stock of the year’s biggest moments in chemistry.
LAB SAFETY
Hawaii explosion cost a researcher an arm
Electrostatic spark likely ignited tank containing mix of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide gases
Jyllian Kemsley
09449-cover13-hawaiiexplosion-350
This steel tank ruptured during the explosion, which severed a researcher’s arm.
Credit: Honolulu Fire Department
Calls for heightened attention to laboratory risks continued in 2016 after postdoctoral researcher Thea Ekins-Coward lost an arm and suffered other injuries in a lab explosion at the University of Hawaii (UH) at Manoa on March 16.
The gas mixture of 55% hydrogen, 38% oxygen, and 7% carbon dioxide was contained in a 49-L steel tank designed for compressed air, not for hazardous gases, according to an investigation report issued by the University of California Center for Laboratory Safety (UCCLS). The tank was not electrically grounded.
Tests commissioned by UCCLS ruled out all possible causes of the explosion other than a static discharge. Prior to the incident, Ekins-Coward had experienced static shocks when touching the tank, as well as a smaller explosion when using a 3.8-L tank.
“The overall underlying cause of the accident was failure to recognize and control the hazards of an explosive gas mixture of hydrogen and oxygen,” UCCLS reports.
“The message to other researchers is that they need to do a better job of educating themselves about the hazards of the materials they’re working with” and what can go wrong, says Craig A. Merlic, UCCLS executive director and a UCLA chemistry professor. Campus safety personnel “need to have conversations with researchers and guide them to the resources that are available” to help conduct experiments safely, he adds.
The explosion cost about $716,000 in infrastructure damage and $60,000 to $100,000 in equipment losses, and UCCLS was paid $88,000 to investigate the accident, says UH spokesperson Dan Meisenzahl.
The Hawaii Occupational Safety & Health Division initially cited UH for 15 workplace safety violations that carried a total fine of $115,500. The violations were later combined into nine and the fine was reduced to $69,300.
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CHEMICAL REGULATION
TSCA reform crossed the finish line
After decades of negotiations, law that controls chemicals in the U.S. marketplace got a makeover
Britt E. Erickson
It was an epic year for chemical regulation in the U.S. For the first time in nearly 40 years, both chambers of Congress agreed to update the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the law that governs chemicals used in household items and industrial products.
Under the revised TSCA, the agency is required to do the following: Update the federal inventory of chemicals in commerce to reflect only the substances that are currently in use. Evaluate the safety of all chemicals currently in the marketplace, beginning with 10 high-priority substances. By the end of 2019, EPA must have at least 20 ongoing chemical evaluations. For each assessment it completes, the agency must begin a new one. Determine that all new chemicals are safe before they hit the market.
EPA’s new authority
Under the revised TSCA, the agency is required to do the following:
Update the federal inventory of chemicals in commerce to reflect only the substances that are currently in use.
Evaluate the safety of all chemicals currently in the marketplace, beginning with 10 high-priority substances. By the end of 2019, EPA must have at least 20 ongoing chemical evaluations. For each assessment it completes, the agency must begin a new one.
Determine that all new chemicals are safe before they hit the market.
The revised TSCA was enacted in June, setting the wheels in motion for EPA to evaluate throughout the next several years the safety of chemicals that are currently in the U.S. marketplace. As required under the new law, the agency chose the first 10 of these chemicals to assess in late November.
The new law gives EPA the authority to collect fees from industry to conduct safety evaluations. It also allows the agency to request safety data for new chemicals. Under the outdated 1976 TSCA, the agency had to first show that a chemical may pose a risk before asking industry to provide such data.
The chemical industry supported the overhaul of TSCA after years of negotiations, saying it would boost consumer confidence in the safety of chemicals in everyday products. “The path to more modern chemical regulation has been decades in the making, and it’s been over three years since work to achieve TSCA reform began in earnest,” Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council, said in June. “TSCA reform will have lasting and meaningful benefits for all American manufacturers, all American families, and for our nation’s standing as the world’s leading innovator,” he added.
Some environmental groups also supported the revised TSCA, but other activists said it doesn’t go far enough to protect human health. The new law improves the 1976 TSCA “in many ways and, depending on implementation by EPA, should do some good,” Andy Igrejas, national campaign director for the advocacy group, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said in June. “Unfortunately, it still goes backwards in a few important ways,” because of lobbying by the chemical industry, he noted. Igrejas and other activists are particularly concerned about provisions in the law that curb state authority over chemicals and weaken EPA’s ability to stop imports that contain toxic substances.
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POLICY
U.S. elected Trump as president
Uncertainty remains about his stance on science
Cheryl Hogue
t-350
Trump speaks at a rally in North Carolina.
Credit: Timothy/ZUMA Press/Splash News/Newscom
After a long, hard-fought campaign, voters handed Republican Donald Trump a presidential victory in November. Republicans also retained control of Congress, meaning GOP lawmakers are planning legislation to fulfill pledges to shrink the federal government and its regulation.
What the new balance of power in Washington will mean for the chemistry enterprise and how policies might change is just beginning to take shape, says ACS Executive Director and CEO Tom Connelly.
Many in the scientific community fear that budget trimming could significantly curb federal funding for academic research. Grant money from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies has dwindled in recent years as Republican lawmakers have trimmed spending.
Scientific organizations, including ACS, which publishes C&EN;, called for the newly elected Trump to pick a science adviser. He has yet to do so. Connelly says, “We are optimistic that the incoming administration will seek input from the science community as it moves forward.” ACS President Donna Nelson says of Trump, “We should be patient and prepare a list of science issues and goals, so that when he requests information from us, we will be ready.”
The pharmaceutical industry, meanwhile, is eager to work with Trump’s Administration to implement a new law designed to speed drug approval. But the President-elect may have given pharma heartburn after he told Time magazine recently, “I’m going to bring down drug prices.”
For the chemical industry, the prospect of less regulation under Trump could lower costs and raise profits. But this top U.S. exporting sector faces policy uncertainties too. Questions remain about whether or how Trump and Congress will address efforts to boost international trade. Trump said during the campaign that he opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would create a free-trade zone among 12 Pacific rim countries.
Meanwhile, many observers say Trump, in conjunction with Congress, is likely to reshape U.S. energy policy. He pledged during the campaign to restore the U.S. coal mining industry, which has seen job losses as a result of mechanization and stiff competition from a flood of cheap domestic natural gas in recent years.
Observers say a main focus of Trump’s efforts on coal will be dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Designed to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants, that regulation is a vehicle for the U.S. to meet its pledges under the Paris Agreement.
Trump’s pick for EPA administrator, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has sued EPA to stop the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt is also among 11 state attorneys general opposing EPA’s plan to tighten safety requirements for chemical plants and refineries that use high-hazard substances such as chlorine.
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PERIODIC TABLE
The periodic table got four new elements
Nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson complete the seventh row
Jyllian Kemsley
elements-square-350
Credit: C&EN;
The periodic table rang in 2016 with a newly completed seventh row, after the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry formally recognized the discoveries of elements 113, 115, 117, and 118. A few weeks ago, the elements got their final names: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson, respectively.
The discoverers of new elements get to propose names and symbols. Japan’s RIKEN research institution named nihonium (Nh). Nihon is one of two ways to say “Japan” in Japanese.
European-American collaborations involving Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the U.S. Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge national laboratories named the other three elements. Moscovium (Mc) and tennessine (Ts) recognize the Moscow and Tennessee areas, respectively. Oganesson (Og) honors Russian nuclear physicist Yuri T. Oganessian, who leads the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.
What fascinates researchers about superheavy elements in the seventh row and beyond is their potential chemistry, says Dawn Shaughnessy, leader of the nuclear and radiochemistry group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. As the number of protons in an atomic nucleus increases, electrons speed up and generate relativistic effects that alter orbital energy levels. That could mean that group reactivity trends don’t hold as elements get heavier. But to find out if that happens, chemists must first determine how to study the short-lived atoms, which are created one at a time in heavy-ion accelerators.
Element song
Comedian and songstress Helen Arney performs an updated version of Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements.”
Credit: Helen Arney
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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Post Dow-DuPont, chemical deal-making waned as 2016 advanced
A few big chemical deals were inked during the year, but it was hardly the frenzy observers were expecting
Alexander H. Tullo
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Chemical deals lead mergers
Buoyed by Bayer’s planned $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto, the chemical industry led global merger activity through the first three quarters of this year. Overall, deal-making fell 22% to $2.37 trillion compared with last year.
Sources: Thomson Reuters, New York Times
After Dow Chemical and DuPont announced plans to merge in late 2015, chemical industry watchers predicted that the year ahead would bring an unprecedented blizzard of deal-making.
Speaking before the IHS World Petrochemical Conference in March, Scott Kleinman, lead partner for private equity at Apollo Global Management, was certain that big companies would keep buying each other.
“I think you are going to see deals you thought would never happen happen this year,” Kleinman concluded.
There were indeed copycat deals. ChemChina launched its acquisition of Syngenta in February. In May, Bayer was making overtures, not consummated until September, for Monsanto.
However, by the third quarter, merger and acquisition activity had cooled. According to the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 23 transactions were announced in the chemical industry during the July–September quarter, a decline of 47% versus the quarter before.
PwC blames uncertainty. “We saw deal-makers take a pause, anxiously waiting for the Fed’s decision on interest rates and the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” the firm said in an October report.
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INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Labs made advances in Zika research
Although funding to fight the virus was stymied, scientists hit milestones
Sarah Everts
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes—their larvae shown here—have been named the culprit in transmitting Zika.Credit: Oscar Rivera/EPA/Newscom
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes—their larvae shown here—have been named the culprit in transmitting Zika.
Credit: Oscar Rivera/EPA/Newscom
In January, the Pan American Health Organization announced an alarming rise in cases of microcephaly and other birth defects among newborns in Brazil, a trend that seemed to coincide with the spread of Zika virus-infected mosquitoes across the country. Shortly thereafter, the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.”
In the U.S., the Obama Administration requested $1.9 billion from Congress in February to fund development of Zika vaccines and diagnostics, as well as to find new strategies to control the virus’s mosquito vectors.
But political bickering stalled approval for seven months and forced federal agencies to perform accounting acrobatics to address the health threat. For example, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention shifted allocations from Ebola research into Zika accounts. Finally, in late September, Congress approved $1.1 billion in stop-gap funding to battle Zika—what many health advocates worried was too little, too late.
“Despite the funding included in the bill, the U.S. response to the Zika crisis remains woefully restricted and inadequate,” opined Nina Besser Doorley of the International Women’s Health Coalition. “The United States failed to act until Zika reached its shores and is trying to catch up.”
Meanwhile, rivals in the publishing industry—Science, Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, and others—put politicians to shame as they agreed jointly in February to make all Zika-related research articles available for free.
As the year wore on, evidence of Zika’s impact on developing fetuses mounted. By summer, most scientists concurred that the mosquito-borne virus was crossing the placental barrier in pregnant women and interrupting healthy fetal brain development.
A flurry of work in laboratories around the world resulted in many milestone advances: Scientists sequenced the genome of the epidemic’s virus, solved the three-dimensional structure of the virus’s protective protein shell, tracked how Zika crosses the placenta, identified potential host and viral proteins involved in infection, and performed initial screens for molecules that might prevent this interaction.
Although much work remains to protect pregnant women and their unborn babies, there’s cause for cautious optimism: A dozen diagnostic tools to identify the pathogen and several Zika vaccines are currently being tested on humans in the clinic.
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AGRICULTURE
Four ag giants to rule them all
Bayer, Dow, Syngenta pursued deals with rivals to ensure profitability, innovation
Melody M. Bomgardner
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A Bayer scientist inspects cotton fibers at a research facility in Lubbock, Texas.
Credit: Bayer
2016 was the year that the dominoes fell on consolidation in the seeds and crop protection industry.
Monsanto was the first agriculture giant to make a move with its failed bid to acquire Syngenta in May 2015. It ended up as the last one to fall when it agreed to be bought by Bayer in September 2016 for $66 billion.
Once the dust settles, there will be only four major, global suppliers of crop chemicals and seeds. Three will result from mergers: Dow Chemical and DuPont, Syngenta and ChemChina, and Bayer and Monsanto. The fourth firm, BASF, also has plans to grow—by picking up businesses the other firms will divest to smooth their way through antitrust regulatory approvals.
The wave of consolidation was driven in part by low prices for agriculture commodities. In the U.S., farmers have seen their incomes drop each year since 2013 and have less to spend on costly inputs such as patented chemicals for pest control and new seeds “stacked” with multiple traits.
By combining forces, agriculture firms hope to control the high costs of developing those innovative products. The industry spends about 10% of annual sales on R&D; but in recent years has created few blockbuster products with $500 million-per-year sales. In addition, the firms bear the cost of long regulatory time lines and periodic reviews of older chemicals.
“The vision for this combination was born out of that desire to help farmers grow more with less,” said Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant when announcing the firm’s deal with Bayer.
But farmers—not to mention regulators and lawmakers—wonder whether fewer firms will mean less competition and innovation overall. Those concerns have already pushed completion of the Dow-DuPont and Syngenta-ChemChina deals to 2017. If regulators decide three deals is too many, the last one—Bayer-Monsanto—may face an uphill battle.
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Corn Growers Association, a trade group of corn farmers, said it has “significant concern” that the Dow-DuPont merger will result in a highly concentrated corn seed market. NCGA is less concerned about competition in corn herbicides and insecticides. Indeed, the group said DowDuPont would be in a better position to compete with Bayer and Syngenta, which dominate crop protection chemicals.
The National Farmers Union, another group representing farmers, said it is concerned that innovation could slow as merged companies cut costs by eliminating overlapping research programs in plant breeding, traits, and chemical discovery.
On the other hand, streamlined spending on crop traits and chemicals has the potential to free up funds for new and emerging agriculture technologies. For example, in its bid for Monsanto, Bayer touted the benefits of a combined R&D; platform in biologics, seed treatment, and digital farming.
The four giants
Agriculture firms paired up to more efficiently develop and market crop chemicals, seeds, and traits.
Credit: Companies, C&EN; calculations
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NOBEL PRIZE
2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at a glance
Here’s who made the trip to Stockholm this year
Bethany Halford
Three chemists made the trip to Stockholm this year for their work on the design and synthesis of interlocked molecules and molecular machines, such as catenanes, rotaxanes, and molecular motors.
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Ben L. Feringa, University of Groningen (left) Credit: Courtesy of Ben Feringa
Jean-Pierre Sauvage, University of Strasbourg (center) Credit: Catherine Schröder/Unistra
J. Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern University Credit: Northwestern U
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POLICY
Brexit bomb exploded
The chemistry enterprise faces uncertainty after British citizens voted to leave the EU
Alex Scott
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Credit: Yang H. Ku/C&EN;/Shutterstock
One of Europe’s biggest political shocks in recent years was the British public’s June 23 decision to exit—or Brexit—the European Union. Many within the chemistry enterprise are now worried the U.K. could be shut off from key academic and trading partners in the EU.
Negotiations for the U.K.’s exit are set to begin in March 2017. Because of their complexity, they are expected to run for about two years.
There was anecdotal evidence soon after the vote that U.K. academics and U.K. university research projects were being excluded from certain European collaborations. Future scientific interactions could be threatened by U.K. government plans to limit the number of immigrants coming into the country. The Royal Society, an independent scientific organization, says restricting the immigration of EU scientists to the U.K. will damage the country’s science base.
In pharmaceuticals, the upheaval will extend to two European institutions currently based in London: the European Medicines Agency and a part of the EU’s planned unitary patent system. Both will have to relocate to an EU country.
Two studies published in the fall concluded that the life sciences sector is at particular risk as a result of Brexit. One imminent issue is a change in U.K. drug approval regulations: The U.K. could have to introduce its own approval system at taxpayer expense, which could cause huge upheaval in the country’s drug approval process.
In a boost for science research, though, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May recently announced that the U.K. will increase public funding for research and technology by more than $2 billion per year. This would more than offset the $1.6 billion that the U.K. science enterprise could lose in EU funding post-Brexit.
Uncertainty is also high on the trade front. The U.K. chemical industry wants to continue trading freely with all EU members without barriers or tariffs. But the European Commission has stated that the U.K. cannot choose economic access and reject social regulations such as free migration of EU citizens within EU countries.
The Chemical Industries Association (CIA), a U.K. industry organization, said during the summer that it expects plenty of give-and-take as part of Brexit negotiations. “If we want access to the single market, we are going to have to accept harmonization on a lot of regulations,” said Tom Crotty, CIA’s president and a member of the board of Ineos, a chemical firm with significant U.K. operations.
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PETROCHEMICALS
Focus returned to Iran’s chemical industry
Lifting of sanctions draws interest of BASF, Shell, Total, and others
Alex Scott
Iran hopes petrochemical deals with foreign firms will boost its economy.Credit: Shutterstock
Iran hopes petrochemical deals with foreign firms will boost its economy.
Credit: Shutterstock
The lifting of international sanctions on Iran in the spring of 2016 kick-started negotiations between Iranian authorities and a slew of western and Asian firms interested in establishing petrochemical ventures in the country. Deals are likely because Iran has some of the largest reserves of oil and gas anywhere in the world but little cash.
The sanctions, imposed in response to Iran’s nuclear program, left the country’s petrochemical industry in tatters. Iran is now seeking between $7 billion and $10 billion in foreign investment. That amount would enable it to produce chemicals worth $70 billion per year within two decades, claims Iran’s National Petrochemical Co. (NPC).
In the past year, companies including Air Liquide, BASF, Linde, Shell, Total, and Mitsui & Co. have entered discussions with Iranian authorities about creating joint-venture companies. Recently, however, BASF Chairman Kurt Bock downplayed comments by NPC that the German company may invest $4 billion in an Iranian chemical project.
“Maybe we can reestablish our business in Iran, but it remains to be seen,” Bock said. It all depends on the political situation in Iran. “But many banks will not lend for projects in Iran, so that is a bottleneck going forward.”
Still, some deals are already being made, including a $1.1 billion agreement between Italian engineering firm Maire Tecnimont and Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co. to build refineries and petrochemical plants in Iran. In recent weeks, Shell signed a letter of intent with NPC to “explore areas of cooperation.”
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POLICY
Overtime pay limit doubles under Obama administration
Salary boost for research postdocs faces uncertainty
Andrea Widener
$47,476
—This is the salary below which employees—including research postdocs—must receive overtime pay under White House rules issued in 2016, up from the previous limit of $23,660. The rule’s fate is unclear, however, because a federal judge blocked it from going into effect and the incoming Trump Administration has opposed the change.
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BIOTECHNOLOGY
The CRISPR craze continued
Patents were disputed, companies went public, and CRISPR-edited cells made it into humans
Ryan Cross
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Guide RNA (green) directs the Cas9 enzyme (space-filling structure) to a specific site in DNA (red) for editing.
Credit: Ian Slaymaker & Lauren Solomon/courtesy of Broad Institute
The buzz over CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology didn’t diminish in 2016. The year was chock-full of scientific advances and biotech investments, culminating in a U.S. patent court hearing that pitted pioneers in the field against one another to determine who holds the licensing rights to CRISPR.
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office judges heard arguments earlier this month from attorneys representing the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University about why its patent—which specified the first use of CRISPR in eukaryotic cells such as human cells—should win the fight. The University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Vienna disagreed. Although their initial patent, filed but not approved before Broad’s, described using CRISPR in prokaryotes such as bacteria, their attorney argued the obvious next step was to translate the technology into eukaryotes. “There was no special sauce” in Broad’s eukaryote CRISPR patent, he stated.
Timing for the final decision is unknown, but that isn’t stopping biotech firms from pushing ahead. Editas Medicine became the first CRISPR franchise to hit the stock market in February. Intellia Therapeutics followed, forming a partnership with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in April and going public in May. CRISPR Therapeutics went public in October.
Meanwhile in the lab, multiple research groups reported different CRISPR strategies for potentially curing sickle cell disease in human cells and animals. Scientists at Harvard also created an improved CRISPR method to precisely modify single bases in DNA.
CRISPR got into humans this year too. After receiving NIH approval, University of Pennsylvania researchers anticipated being the first to use CRISPR editing on immune cells that would be injected into cancer patients. But in October, Chinese researchers beat them to the punch, triggering a Penn scientist to say this could lead to “Sputnik 2.0.”
Looking ahead to 2017, researchers hope to hear a decision on the CRISPR patent case. They are maybe a little less hopeful about Jennifer Lopez’s possible TV show, a thriller about CRISPR-based bioterrorism attacks.
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PERSISTENT POLLUTANTS
Perfluorinated compounds got increased scrutiny
Federal agencies and courts had their say on the environmentally long-lived substances
Jessica Morrison, Marc S. Reisch
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Credit: Steve Johnson/Flickr
Two perfluorinated compounds—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—were the focus of U.S. federal regulation and a handful of lawsuits in 2016.
Though the major companies that make or use PFOA agreed in 2006 to phase out production, the chemicals persist in the environment because of the strength of their carbon-fluorine bonds. Once used in the manufacture of nonstick materials, such as 3M’s Scotchgard and DuPont’s Teflon, the perfluorinated substances have been linked to disease in humans.
After more than a decade of study, the Environmental Protection Agency in May issued a lifetime health advisory for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water. According to the agency’s new guidelines, utilities should notify consumers when the chemicals exceed 70 parts per trillion—individually or combined—in drinking water.
09449-cover25-pfoapfos-350Environmental advocates, including environmental attorney Robert A. Bilott questioned EPA’s delay in setting a chronic exposure limit for drinking water. “That is something that could have been and should have been done 15 or 16 years ago,” Bilott says.
In response to a 2014 petition by environmental and public health groups linking perfluorinated chemicals to cancer and birth defects, the Food & Drug Administration this year banned five perfluoroalkyl substances from use in U.S. food packaging.
The environmental fallout over perfluorinated chemicals generated a variety of legal activities this year. In February, residents of Hoosick Falls, N.Y., sued Honeywell International and Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics for contaminating the village’s water supply. Both firms used PFOA to make stain-resistant fabrics.
In July, a jury ordered DuPont and its spin-off Chemours to pay $5.6 million to a testicular cancer victim who traced his illness to Chemours’s Parkersburg, W.Va., fluorochemical plant. The suit is one of 3,500 pending in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, by plaintiffs who live near the Parkersburg plant.
And in Alabama, one utility notified its customers that PFOA and PFOS levels exceeded guidelines for drinking water and then sued 3M and carpet makers in October for remediation costs. Years ago, the carpet makers used the perfluorinated substances in stain-resistant broadloom treatments.
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
From the lab to the market
Several new technologies hit commercial milestones in 2016
C&EN; Business Department
A microbial seed coating from Monsanto and Novozymes helps corn grow healthier roots.Credit: Monsanto/Novozymes
A microbial seed coating from Monsanto and Novozymes helps corn grow healthier roots.
Credit: Monsanto/Novozymes
Vigorous year for plant microbes
Purveyors of microbes that boost plant health raised capital and launched products this year. Boston-based start-up Indigo attracted $100 million from investors. It is now selling a microbe-coated cotton seed that helps plants boost water use and yield under harsh conditions. Another start-up, Bioconsortia, raised $12 million to develop biofertilizers and biostimulants made up of communities of synergistic organisms. And agriculture giant Monsanto, working with partner Novozymes, introduced a fungal-based corn inoculant to help plants extract nutrients from the soil. – Melody Bomgardner
3-D printing went mainstream
Three-dimensional printing began as a tool for engineers and hobbyists, but this year it started to go mainstream. In July, GE began using 3-D printed fuel nozzles in some of its jet engines. Dental labs adopted laser printers to make metal replacement teeth. And start-up firm Carbon 3D launched a photochemistry-enabled printer designed to rapidly make industrial-grade 3-D parts. “We want to democratize manufacturing by lowering the cost of taking a new idea from conceptualization to realization,” said Raymond Weitekamp, CEO of PolySpectra, a Caltech spin-off that is developing polymers for 3-D printing. – Marc Reisch
EUV lithography became real
Extreme ultraviolet lithography, a technique that enables thinner circuit lines in computer chips, gained momentum in 2016 after years of delay. Tool manufacturers overcame technical challenges and launched scanners that can harness 13-nm EUV light to draw patterns of 10 nm or less. The biggest of them, the Dutch firm ASML, expected to ship four such scanners in 2016, each costing around $100 million. Meanwhile, chemical maker JSR and the Imec research consortium disclosed that they had made commercial batches of photoresists that can be used with the scanners. And the start-up Inpria raised $11 million to further its tin oxide-based EUV photoresists. – Jean-François Tremblay
ASML shipped four of these EUV scanners this year.Credit: ASML
ASML shipped four of these EUV scanners this year.
Credit: ASML
Synthetic biology advanced
Making genetically engineered organisms will be more like building with Legos and less like tweaking a hard-to-decipher recipe, thanks to synthetic biology start-ups, which had a big growth year. Scientists in Boston and the Bay Area are using automation, miniaturization, and computer learning to vastly speed up DNA and gene synthesis. The companies they founded—Gen9, Twist Bioscience, and Zymergen—attracted venture backing, customers, and key partners in 2016. Their custom-made DNA sequences will be used by organism builders at firms such as Amyris, Cargill, and Ginkgo Bioworks. – Melody Bomgardner
2-D materials hit the market
The development of functional 2-D materials took a big leap forward in 2016. Caltech, for example, developed a low-cost deposition process for making high-quality graphene sheets of about 1 m2. It is now working with an undisclosed semiconductor company to commercialize the technology. And the U.K. firm Thomas Swan became the first company to offer commercial volumes of 2-D boron nitride, which has good thermal conductivity but doesn’t conduct electricity. In the coming years, layers of different 2-D materials will be combined to create multifunctional products, said Thomas Swan executive Andy Goodwin. – Alex Scott
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CLIMATE CHANGE
Paris Agreement to curb climate change took off
Countries also clinched deal to limit hydrofluorocarbon use
Cheryl Hogue
This year saw the official launch of the first international climate change accord that calls for greenhouse gas emission controls by nearly the entire world.
That deal, the Paris Agreement, was completed in December 2015 in the French capital. This April, the accord set a record among UN pacts for having the most countries—175—sign it on the first day they could. The agreement formally took effect in early November.
But negotiations in November focused on global implementation of the Paris deal were shaken by the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. Trump said during the campaign that he would “cancel” the Paris accord and has tapped an opponent of greenhouse gas controls as head of EPA.
In other climate action, countries this year turned to the chemical industry to lead the world away from the use of a class of potent greenhouse gases: hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants. Under the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, negotiators in October finished a legally binding pact that calls for nations to limit the amount of HFCs they use within 12 years. Though HFCs don’t harm stratospheric ozone, they were introduced as substitutes for chemicals that erode the ozone layer and therefore fall under the purview of the Montreal protocol rather than the Paris Agreement.
Chemical makers, who back the new HFC treaty, are introducing more climate-friendly substitutes, notably hydrofluoroolefins. Some environmental activists, though, are pushing for greater use of ammonia and carbon dioxide as refrigerants.
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BUSINESS
World chemical production at a glance
Growth ebbed in North America and Europe but accelerated in Asia
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Note: Percent changes are to production volumes.
Source: American Chemistry Council
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WATER
Flint’s water woes lingered
A failure to properly treat the city’s drinking water caused high lead levels and disease outbreaks
Michael Torrice
Rust-colored water was one disconcerting sign of Flint's water woes.Credit: flintwaterstudy.org
Rust-colored water was one disconcerting sign of Flint’s water woes.
Credit: flintwaterstudy.org
Just five days into 2016, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Genesee County in response to high lead levels in the city of Flint’s drinking water. This declaration followed months of work by scientists and activists to alert government officials that something was wrong with Flint’s water.
The city’s water woes started back in 2014 when it stopped taking treated water from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department and instead began treating water from the nearby Flint River. The city’s treatment plant didn’t effectively optimize this new source of water to prevent it from corroding pipes in the city’s distribution system. This corrosion leeched lead into the drinking water.
The entire crisis might have been avoided if the city had added an orthophosphate corrosion inhibitor to the water, says Marc A. Edwards, a Virginia Tech environmental engineer who led a team that studied Flint’s water problems. Other factors contributing to the water’s corrosiveness were a relatively low pH and high chloride levels.
Edwards’s team also determined this year that outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in Flint in June 2014 and May 2015 were likely linked to the city’s corrosive water (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00192). The lung infection is caused by Legionella bacteria that can lurk in drinking water systems. Flint’s corrosive drinking water leeched iron out of city pipes, which could have fed the bacteria’s growth and reacted with and eliminated chlorine disinfectant.
Flint is back to taking water from Detroit. Recent measurements by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Edwards’s team show that lead levels in the city’s water are dropping. Some homes still have levels above a regulatory limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The city hopes to replace lead pipes throughout its distribution system. But a study this year from researchers at Dalhousie University suggested that for such replacements to effectively lower lead levels, they must be complete—all pipes must be replaced between water mains and a home, not just up to homeowners’ property lines (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b01912). Partial replacements can actually increase lead levels because of electrochemical reactions that corrode the lead, the study found.
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ASIA
As China’s economy slowed, chemical makers adjusted
Companies focused on healthy markets such as auto manufacturing, personal care
Jean-Francois Tremblay
Slowing down
Growth in China’s economy has been declining since 2011.
a Forecast. GDP = gross domestic product.
Credit: World Bank
Early this year, China announced that its economy grew by slightly less than 7% in 2015. Economic growth is on track to be even lower in 2016.
Compared with the 8-10% growth China enjoyed in the 15 years prior, the figures are low, but for the chemical industry, the country remains a land of opportunities. “If you are close to the customers, you can achieve growth in China,” says Stephan Kothrade, president of BASF Greater China (meaning China and Taiwan).
At paints and coatings producer PPG Industries, Mike Horton, head of Asia-Pacific operations, points out that the Chinese economy is unevenly affected by the slowdown. “Of course, if you try to sell to the state-owned steel industry, that sector feels a big impact,” he says. Another struggling industry is shipbuilding, to which PPG sells marine coatings. A slowdown in international trade is the main cause, he says.
But PPG, Horton says, has managed to grow in China faster than the country’s GDP by profiting from sectors such as auto manufacturing. Chinese carmakers, he observes, are particularly keen to buy PPG’s premium grades of coatings. “The finish and color of the car is the first thing that a buyer sees,” he notes.
BASF’s Kothrade concurs that the automotive sector is a bright spot. The German firm has developed new emissions catalysts for the country as well as odor-free foams that can be used in car interiors. Unlike in the West, he notes, Chinese buyers don’t like that new car smell.
Besides automotive, Kothrade notes, the Chinese personal care industry offers opportunities for chemical makers able to customize products. BASF, he says, was able to support the Chinese company Blue Moon in developing a highly concentrated detergent that works well on whites.
David Jiang, president of the chemical market consulting firm Sinodata Consulting, says the main problem for the chemical industry in China is that local producers have overinvested in commodities, leading to a glut of certain products. But Chinese demand for chemicals remains strong, particularly for use in packaging, he notes.
China’s lower GDP growth needs to be put in perspective, Kothrade adds. Even at the current rate, he says, the Chinese economy grows by the equivalent of one whole Sweden every year.
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AWARDS
Mostafa A. El-Sayed won the 2016 Priestley Medal
Nanomaterials and spectroscopy pioneer received the American Chemical Society’s highest honor
Mitch Jacoby
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Credit: Mitch Jacoby/C&EN;
“Everyone gets a few good breaks in his or her life. The lucky ones are those who recognize them and change their lives accordingly.”
—Mostafa A. El-Sayed, professor at Georgia Institute of Technology; recipient of the 2016 Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society’s highest honor
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EMPLOYMENT
ACS members on average fared better than young graduates in employment surveys
Andrea Widener
2.6%
The unemployment rate for chemists in 2016 based on an annual survey of ACS members, down from 3.1% in 2015.
:
12.3%
The unemployment rate for new chemistry graduates, based on a separate survey ACS conducted in late 2015 and early 2016.
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ACS NEWS
ACS invests internationally
Global commitment is seen across the society’s activities
Linda Wang
ACS currently has 19 International Chemical Sciences Chapters (orange circles) and 27 international student chapters (red diamonds). Click on each chapter to find out when they were established.
The American Chemical Society continued to invest internationally this past year. “Our authors are increasingly global, our customers for CAS are increasingly global, and we’re seeing a marked increase in our membership from outside of the U.S.,” says ACS executive director and CEO Tom Connelly.
ACS approved three more International Chemical Sciences Chapters—China National Capital Area (JingJinJi), South Western China, and Iraq—and three more international student chapters in Malaysia and India, bringing the totals to 19 and 27, respectively. Meanwhile, ACS on Campus hosted 16 events abroad this year.
At the fall ACS national meeting, ACS signed six Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with organizations such as the Chinese Chemical Society, the Mexican Chemical Society, and the European Association for Chemical & Molecular Sciences, and agreed on plans to organize the 2018 Atlantic Basin Conference on Chemistry. MOUs formalize partnerships between signatories.
On Oct. 23–25, ACS Publications hosted its inaugural symposium, Innovation in Molecular Science, in Beijing with the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which celebrated its 60th anniversary (C&EN;, Oct. 10, page 18).
Steady climbACS grew its international membership.a As of Nov. 30. Source: ACS membership data
Steady climb
ACS grew its international membership.a As of Nov. 30.
Source: ACS membership data
“We’re looking at developing a range of events across the globe so we can support world-class research internationally, as represented in our journals,” says James Milne, senior vice president of the Journals Publishing Group at ACS. ACS Publications will host two symposia next year, in partnership with the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, with planning under way for additional events in 2018 and beyond.
CAS hosted three Innovation Summit events in China, Japan, and Brazil. This initiative, which began in 2015, engages business leaders and decision makers in addressing global challenges. “This investment is empowering research everywhere and has developed new customer relationships, increased customer engagement, and elevated recognition of ACS brands, including CAS,” says CAS president Manuel S. Guzman.
On Nov. 11–12, in Hyderabad, India, ACS held its inaugural ACS Industry Symposium with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. The event connected ACS members in India, higlighted the local chapter, and recruited new ACS members. The next symposium will take place in India in late 2017.
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FINANCE
Spun-off firms found their footing in 2016
Chemours, Versum showed how young firms can cut costs, grow opportunities
Melody M. Bomgardner
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When the American colonies won freedom from England, the new nation got the chance to flourish in new markets—but debt payments nearly sunk the enterprise. And so it is with chemical spin-offs. Born with debt, they must follow a path for growth to attract investors.
The new generation of chemical firms was launched by parent firms whose boards—often under pressure from activist investors—decided certain businesses would do better if run independently.
Chemours, DuPont’s former specialty chemical business, and Covestro, recently Bayer’s MaterialScience division, were both spun off in the summer of last year.
This year’s class included GCP Applied Technologies, which was W.R. Grace’s construction products business; Versum Materials, formerly the electronics chemicals business of Air Products & Chemicals; Ingevity, the specialty chemical arm of the paper company MeadWestvaco (now WestRock); and AdvanSix, Honeywell’s nylon 6 business.
Chemours got off to a rough start. Prior to its official beginning it announced the elimination of more than 5% of its workforce and a $350 million cost-cutting program that will shadow it through 2017. Investors worried about low prices for titanium dioxide and liabilities relating to some 3,500 lawsuits from perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) exposure in drinking water.
But just in time for its first anniversary, Chemours booked significant cost savings, bumped up sales of its Opteon refrigerants, and ramped up TiO2 production amid rising prices. Analysts now feel the firm has a good handle on its PFOA liability. In a research note, Jefferies stock analyst Lawrence Alexander said the “transformation is on track and on schedule.”
Covestro, meanwhile, took steps such as closing a high-cost methylene diphenyl diisocyanate plant in Spain. The now-unshackled firm is working on new polyurethanes and polycarbonates including wind turbine materials, specialties for 3-D printing, biobased plastics, and even soccer balls.
Newer spin-offs will likewise have to show their mettle. For example, Versum must grow faster than the industry average, and wisely invest its cash to attract investors, notes Morgan Stanley analyst Neel Kumar.
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NOBEL PRIZE
Remembering the Nobel laureates we lost in 2016
Chemistry hasn’t lost four of its Nobel Prize winners in a single year since 1971
C&EN; Staff
Walter Kohn
March 9, 1923 – April 19, 2016
Winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his development of the density-functional theory.”
“Walter was an internationally regarded colleague, scholar, mentor, and role model.”—Henry T. Yang, University of California, Santa Barbara
Credit: UC Santa Barbara
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Harold W. Kroto
October 7, 1939 – April 30, 2016
Winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the “discovery of fullerenes.”
“Harry very much became the embodiment of the hopes of Alfred Nobel, with a better, more peaceful world being brought about through the dissemination of science.”—Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt, Florida State University
Credit: Florida State University
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Roger Y. Tsien
Feb. 1, 1952 – Aug. 24, 2016
Winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.”
“He was an inspiration for how to do science: to be constantly curious, to never stop exploring, and most important, to appreciate the beauty of science.”—Amy Palmer, University of Colorado, Boulder
Credit: UC San Diego Health
Ahmed H. Zewail
Feb. 26, 1946 – Aug. 2, 2016
Winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy”
“Ahmed Zewail was an extraordinary scientist who cared about the world and making a contribution to society as an Egyptian and as an American.”—Jacqueline K. Barton, California Institute of Technology
Credit: Mitch Jacoby/C&EN;
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PUBLISHING
ACS proposed chemistry preprint server
Website would promote access to unpublished research
Andrea Widener
The American Chemical Society announced in August its intention to start a chemistry preprint server called ChemRxiv. ACS is currently seeking partners to help launch the server, likely sometime in 2017.
Preprint servers promote the sharing of draft research papers and preliminary data before they go through a journal’s more formal peer review process.
The chemistry community is a latecomer to the preprint server business. The physics and computer science communities have used arXiv for more than 20 years.
Nature Chemistry chief editor Stuart Cantrill isn’t sure chemists want to put their work online early. Even if they do, “I’m not convinced an ACS-branded server will appeal to all,” Cantrill said when the announcement was made.
Previous attempts to start a chemistry preprint server failed, largely because journal editors did not allow submissions that had been posted previously online. Nature, Science, and many other top journals now publish research that has been on a preprint server. ACS journal editors can decide for themselves whether to accept preprints; about 33 of the approximately 50 ACS journals will accept that work.
A bogus competitor to ChemRxiv was launched and began seeking preprint submissions before the true site was up and running. Now, ChemRxiv.org has a website up where people can register for more information when it becomes available.
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EDUCATION
Berkeley College of Chemistry avoided reorganization
Student’s petition ignited social media firestorm
Celia Henry Arnaud
09449-cover37-berkeleytwt-350In February, a petition at change.org alerted the chemistry community that the University of California, Berkeley, was considering folding its College of Chemistry into its College of Letters & Science to help fix long-term budgetary problems. The news ignited a firestorm on social media. A month later, such reorganization was no longer under consideration.
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PUBLIC HEALTH
Fight against opioid epidemic continued in 2016
Public health experts work to expand access to overdose treatment; DEA proposes then reconsiders ban on opioid alternative
Michael Torrice
The statistics on the U.S.’s opioid epidemic are stark: Since 1999, overdose deaths from heroin and opioid prescription drugs have more than quadrupled, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Public health officials and advocates continued to battle this opioid epidemic in 2016.
nax-250Part of the fight has been over expanding access to naloxone, a drug that counteracts opioid overdoses, for first responders and people who live with opioid users. Naloxone acts as an antagonist for opioid receptors, knocking heroin and other opioid molecules out of the receptors’ binding sites.
In recent years, drug companies have developed easy-to-use naloxone delivery systems. For example, earlier this year Adapt Pharma started selling a naloxone nasal spray.
Meanwhile, scientists have been searching for opioid alternatives. Some researchers hope to find molecules that relieve pain without activating signaling pathways in the body associated with addiction.
Those who are worried about opioid addiction but looking to relieve chronic pain have turned to kratom, a drug derived from the leaves of the Mitragyna speciosa plant. Researchers this year determined that alkaloids in the leaves bind and activate opioid receptors in the brain (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b00360).
At the end of August, the Drug Enforcement Agency announced it planned to temporarily list two alkaloids in kratom as Schedule I substances, effectively banning the drug and plant. After outcry from users, scientists, and even some members of Congress, the agency reversed its plans and solicited comments from the public through Dec. 1 to help make a final decision.
Opioid epidemic Deaths from overdoses of heroin and opioid pain medications continue to grow in the U.S.Source: CDC Credit: CDC
Opioid epidemic
Deaths from overdoses of heroin and opioid pain medications continue to grow in the U.S.
Source: CDC
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SUSTAINABILITY
Noble gas shortages averted, for now
Higher prices and new sources made neon and helium more widely available
Marc S. Reisch
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Credit: C&EN;/Shutterstock
Users of helium and neon still get indigestion from recalling recent shortages of the two noble gases. But new investments this year by producers are likely to help stave off a repeat of earlier gut-wrenching experiences.
In response to high helium prices, the industrial gases firm Linde said in May that it would construct a plant to extract helium from a gas field in South Africa. The facility is set to open in 2018.
A month later, start-up firm Helium One said it was raising $40 million to expand exploration of a newly discovered helium field in Tanzania that scientists say could contain seven times the amount of the noble gas currently consumed worldwide each year. Today, helium is recovered as a by-product of natural gas extraction, but high prices could justify making the Tanzania project the first to produce helium on purpose, the firm says.
Users also took steps to cut helium waste. In October, three scientific societies urged Congress to support academic researchers’ efforts to limit helium consumption.
High prices and shortages also spurred investments in neon, which both enables neon lighting and is crucial to a photolithographic technique that packs transistors on semiconductor chips for phones and computers.
In July, Linde again came to the rescue, saying it would spend $250 million to capture 40 million L of neon annually from its air separation plant in La Porte, Texas. Meanwhile, shortages eased somewhat because of conservation efforts.
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PETROCHEMICALS
The shale gas boom by the numbers
Alex Tullo
$170 billion
The amount of U.S. investment that chemical companies have announced since the beginning of the decade due to cheap shale gas, according to the American Chemistry Council. The trade group attributes 275 projects to the new gas resource.
8
The number of 180-m tankers that Ineos hopes will deliver inexpensive U.S. ethane feedstock to its ethylene plants in Scotland and Norway every month by 2020.
8.5 million metric tons
The amount of ethylene production capacity currently under construction on the U.S. Gulf Coast. About two-thirds of this capacity is set to come onstream in 2017.
1,800
The number of Olympic-sized swimming pools that 8 million metric tons of polyethylene could fill. This is the amount of new annual polyethylene capacity the consulting group IHS Markit expects to come online in the U.S. by 2020.
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PESTICIDES
Crop protection products in the crosshairs
Health and environmental concerns prompted regulatory action
Britt E. Erickson
EPA concluded in a draft assessment that the triazine herbicide, widely used on corn, poses a health risk to many plants and animals. The agency is expected to make a final decision about atrazine before the end of the year.
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EPA proposed twice this year to revoke all food tolerances for the organophosphate insecticide amid pushback from pesticide makers. The agency is under a court ordered deadline to make a final decision by March 31, 2017.
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EPA approved a lower-volatility version of Monsanto’s dicamba herbicide for use on genetically modified soybeans after Midwestern farmers complained about drift from alleged illegal spraying of older dicamba formulations.
crop3
The European Union chose to allow the use of glyphosate until at least the end of 2017 despite opposition from some member countries that want to ban the herbicide because of health concerns. Meanwhile, EPA approved the herbicide Enlist Duo—a combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D—for use on genetically engineered corn and soybeans in more than a dozen U.S. states.
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ACS NEWS
ACS launched new journals
ACS Earth & Space Chemistry and ACS Energy Letters debuted this year
Linda Wang
ACS Earth & Space Chemistry will publish high-impact research in the fields of geochemistry, atmospheric and ocean chemistry, astronomy, and analytical geochemistry.
Editor: Joel D. Blum of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
First issue: early 2017
ACS Energy Letters focuses on the rapid communication of research across the field of energy, including energy capture, conservation, and storage.
Editor: Prashant Kamat of the University of Notre Dame
First issue: July 2016
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Credit: ACS Publications
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Credit: ACS Publications
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SNAPSHOT
Website search terms of the year
Once on C&EN;’s site, these are the subjects that readers looked up the most often in 2016
Source: Google AnalyticsNote:In this word cloud, how big a term appears correlates with how many times it was searched.
Note: In this word cloud, how big a term appears correlates with how many times it was searched.
Source: Google Analytics
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BIOBASED CHEMICALS
Biobased materials hit the big time
Companies making polymers from biomass noted substantial progress in 2016
Alexander H. Tullo
With oil prices half what they were just a couple of years ago, 2016 would seem like an unlikely breakout year for biobased chemicals. But several firms in the field hit major commercial milestones over the past 12 months.
09449-cover44-fdca-250Avantium and BASF formed a joint venture to build a half-billion-dollar furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) plant in Antwerp, Belgium, using Avantium’s catalysts to make FDCA out of sugar.
FDCA is reacted with ethylene glycol to make polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a polyester meant to replace polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in soda bottles and other packages. Avantium has been collaborating with Coca-Cola and Danone for years. In September, Avantium and Toyobo said they would make PEF polymers and films together in Japan.
The material won’t have to compete with oil-derived PET on environmental appeal alone. PEF has 10 times better oxygen barrier properties than PET, which could allow for practical plastic beer bottles.
This year, DuPont and agricultural giant ADM unveiled a collaboration to develop a similar polymer, polytrimethylene furandicarboxylate, made from the biobased chemicals furan dicarboxylic methyl ester and 1,3 propanediol. DuPont and ADM plan a demonstration facility in Decatur, Ill.
Novomer scored a huge gain when it sold its polyols unit to Saudi Aramco in a deal potentially worth $100 million. The polyols aren’t biobased, but by using carbon dioxide as a raw material, they do lock in a fair amount of greenhouse gas.
Moreover, the company will use the sale proceeds to develop a plant that makes acrylic acid via a biobased route. Its process begins with ethylene oxide made from ethanol and carbon monoxide possibly derived from agricultural waste.
Anellotech is taking petroleum-based chemicals head-on with its process to turn lignocellulosic biomass into the aromatic chemicals benzene, toluene, and xylene. This year, the company commissioned a pilot plant in Silsbee, Texas. It also received some pretty big backing, including investments from a Toyota unit and the Japanese beverage maker Suntory.
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BUSINESS
No better deal emerged for Mossville, La.
Residents are frustrated as the South African company’s buyout program nears completion
Rick Mullin
Dump trucks lined up to move dirt for Sasol’s project.Credit: Fluor
Dump trucks lined up to move dirt for Sasol’s project.
Credit: Fluor
By the time C&EN; visited Mossville, La., in February 2016, most of the town’s residents had left, opting to take a voluntary buy-out offered by Sasol, the South African petrochemical company that is in the midst of a big expansion of its operations on the town’s outskirts.
Many of those remaining claimed they could not afford to relocate with the amount of money Sasol offered. They said they planned to meet with the company to discuss getting a better deal.
According to Wilma Subra, an environmental consultant involved with the community, the group did meet with Sasol but without resolution. “For the most part, they never did get back to the community on that,” she says.
Kim Cusimano, manager of public relations for Sasol’s North American operations, says she is unaware of a formal petition for changes to the voluntary buyout program and that the company continues to meet regularly with residents. Sasol estimates that approximately 100 homes will remain in Mossville after everyone who agrees to a buyout leaves town.
For those who’ve stayed, things remain in a holding pattern. Haki Kazi Vincent is negotiating with Sasol to get the company to lease family property that he claims cannot be sold because of a long-standing deal with the federal government. Negotiations have not advanced since February, he says.
Vincent adds that he is also having no luck getting Sasol to fix a fence around 10 acres of property that he says the company’s construction crew destroyed when it was laying pipe.
“The people who you met are still there,” Subra says. “The construction is just disrupting their lives, and it’s just getting worse and worse.”
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BIOTECHNOLOGY
U.S. prepares for national food labeling standard
Disclosure of genetically modified ingredients will soon be mandatory
Britt E. Erickson
Credit: Campbell Soup Company
Credit: Campbell Soup Company
U.S. consumers are beginning to see labels on food products indicating whether they contain genetically modified ingredients, thanks to legislation enacted this year. The new law requires USDA to establish by July 2018 a national mandatory standard for labeling genetically modified foods. It also prohibits U.S. states from enacting their own laws for labeling such foods.
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JUMP TO
Hawaii explosion cost a researcher an arm
TSCA reform crossed the finish line
U.S. elected Trump as president
The periodic table got four new elements
Post Dow-DuPont, chemical deal-making waned as 2016 advanced
Labs made advances in Zika research
Four ag giants to rule them all
2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at a glance
Brexit bomb exploded
Focus returned to Iran’s chemical industry
Overtime pay limit doubles under Obama administration
The CRISPR craze continued
Perfluorinated compounds got increased scrutiny
From the lab to the market
Paris Agreement to curb climate change took off
World chemical production at a glance
Flint’s water woes lingered
As China’s economy slowed, chemical makers adjusted
Mostafa A. El-Sayed won the 2016 Priestley Medal
ACS members on average fared better than young graduates in employment surveys
ACS invests internationally
Spun-off firms found their footing in 2016
Remembering the Nobel laureates we lost in 2016
ACS proposed chemistry preprint server
Berkeley College of Chemistry avoided reorganization
Fight against opioid epidemic continued in 2016
Noble gas shortages averted, for now
The shale gas boom by the numbers
Crop protection products in the crosshairs
ACS launched new journals
Website search terms of the year
Biobased materials hit the big time
No better deal emerged for Mossville, La.
U.S. prepares for national food labeling standard
Quiz: How well do you remember the year’s chemistry headlines?
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