In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved more biologic new molecular entities as compared to the previous years. In this background, the leading data and analytics company Global Data also found that the sponsors increased the outsourcing of these biologics’ active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing.

Vendors of process control systems strive to make their systems not only increasingly powerful, but also more user-friendly. This is an ongoing challenge, given the increasing complexity of today’s processes and the extensive range of tasks. The diverse user groups of control systems have different requirements here when it comes to topics like user-friendliness, performance, or efficiency.

With the help of special bacteria and an innovative process concept, BASF and Lanzatech have been able to produce n-octanol at laboratory scale from carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The combination of Lanzatech’s gas fermentation technology into BASF’s Verbund will help the firms to move into the direction of a carbon-neutral circular economy.

Leybold has further expanded its Turbovac i/iX pump family especially for industrial, coating and research applications that require robust pumps with higher pumping speeds. The new 1350 and 1450 sizes and its variants have been developed to maximize the pumping speeds. With these variants, the Turbovac i/iX series is now complete with 8 models ranging from 90 to 1450 l/s sizes.

Hydrocarbons are likely to remain the most important source of energy for decades to come in India, despite other forms of energy such as coal, renewable energy, etc. India is currently the fourth largest consumer of petroleum products in the world in spite of a very low per capita consumption, said Additional Secretary, Ministry of Petroluem & Natural Gas, Ajay Sawhney (IAS) while inaugurating the 20th Refinery Technology Meet at Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Under the agreement, Metso will be responsible for delivering and carrying out related engineering services for Tata Steel’s large-scale iron ore pellet plant.

With its new fibre feeder, Brabender Technologie is breaking new ground in the feeding of long and uneven fibres.

Clariant has announced the intention to acquire Plastichemix Industries, a masterbatch business in India, located in Vadodara with production facilities in Rania, Kalol and Nandesari in Gujarat.

On expansion, the JV facility is anticipated to add acetic acid with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes per year by May 2019. Together the companies also aim to double the current 200,000 tpa vinyl acetate monomer capacity with the addition of a second Vam plant towards the end of 2020.

Solvay starts the production of of specialty polymer compounds in China: The company's compounding plant in Changshu, Jiangsu province, started the production of polyphthalamide (PPA), polyarylamide (PARA) and modified PARA for the country's electronics, automotive, consumer and industrial applications markets.