Is a lack of fundamental understanding undermining the performance of the talent we have?
This article aims to provide thought-provoking views about the talent within the chemical industry and its ability to provide what industry needs; is there really a talent shortage or could it be that there is a shortage of talent within the people working in industry?
Those that work in the pharmaceutical industry will be very aware of the issues associated with final physical form, such as salt selection and polymorphism and its control.
The 12th International Conference on The Scale Up of Chemical Processes was held in Boston last week and was attended by 85 organic chemists and chemical engineers from all over the world.
There were 16 speakers, from a variety of global companies talking about process efficiency, yield and throughput, safety and environmental issues and other problems faced when scaling up.
'I enjoyed the mix of various perspectives within this unified topic'
When chemists are developing processes in the laboratory on small scale the reactions will often be selective for the desired product, partly as a result of the reaction conditions chosen by the chemist and partly because the reactions are usually well mixed. During development, it is important that work is carried out that is relevant to the likely operational conditions at scale so issues such as rate of reagent addition, point of addition and impact of agitation are evaluated to guide the development of the process and not just the chemistry
Our conferences feature the latest case studies presented by leading international experts in their specialist fields and exhibitors can present their products or services directly to delegates during our informal networking events and coffee breaks. We have added some videos featuring just some of the exhibitors at our recent OPR&D Florida.
Moving into another year, and indeed another decade, I have been in a reflective frame of mind, looking back at what has been as we step forward again into another new era. Amongst my thoughts are the chemistries and technologies that have caught my attention and which continue to enthuse me!
2011 is International Year of Chemistry and we were discussing what we can do at Scientific Update to honour this. That's when we started talking about what would be our 'Top 10' Organic Reactions - so here are my thoughts...
