Waste water is more than just mud. In some industrial processes it is full of valuable raw materials, such as traces of the rare metal gallium. In order to recover them, researchers from Freiberg have now tested a new biotechnical process — and filtered metal ions out of the wastewater using a peptide gel.

India's chemical industry is one of the fastest growing in the world and contributes 3.4 % to the global chemical industry. A dedicated focus on developing sustainable specialty chemicals and investing significantly in R&D and technology is trending in this burgeoning sector.

The chemistry equipment firm Asynt has introduced a new waterless condenser – Condensyn Maxi which proves beneficial for large-scale synthetic chemical reactions in the laboratory. It also assists scientists to scale up their experiments from small benchtop synthesis to large volume jacketed reactor vessels.

In response to rising demand for lightweight materials for special applications, Evonik is expanding its production of closed-cell high-performance rigid foams under the Rohacell brand at its Mobile site in the United States.

The companies Shell USA and Shell Midstream Partners (SHLX) have executed a definitive agreement and plan of merger pursuant to which Shell USA will acquire all of the common units representing limited partner interests in SHLX for a total value of approximately 1.96 billion dollars.

In the background of rising demand of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, Lotte Chemical and Sasol Chemicals have plans to explore a joint project to develop an electrolyte solvents production plant. Sasol’s site near Lake Charles in the U.S. and Marl in Germany are being considered for the project.

China has announced massive investments in one of the country's largest petrochemical industry sites. In Zhanjiang, at the southern tip of the People's Republic in Guangdong Province, another 45.2 billion dollars is being pumped into a Verbund site which will focus on petrochemicals and steel production over the next five years. The German chemical giant BASF is right in the middle of all this.

Tata Chemicals Europe has launched the first industrial scale carbon capture and usage plant in the UK. The plant is expected to capture 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Also, CO2 captured from energy generation emissions is being purified to food and pharmaceutical grade which will then be used as a raw material to produce sodium bicarbonate.

Can hydrogen play out as chlorine chemistry’s trump card? — Safe, clean, and sustainable — Eurochlor’s position paper on its Mid-Century Strategy for the chlorine industry reads like green buzzword bingo. Yet it’s clear that if the European Union wants to become carbon-neutral by 2050, it will have to take chlorine chemistry into account. It’s just as well that electrolysis provides a sought-after co-product.

The new free trade zone RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) means new growth, but also more competition in the Asian chemical industry, especially for small and medium-sized companies.