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Tag: Demand

New catalysts target key industry challenges

Selecting the right catalysts for the SO2 converter in a sulphuric acid plant has always been about balancing expenses, gains, and compliance. With increasing demands for sustainability and in challenging economic times, operators need to adjust their plants to get even more from less. This has led to market demand for new catalytic solutions that offer better productivity and a lower climate footprint, all at the lowest cost possible. Catalyst design and formulations continue to evolve with Haldor Topsoe, DuPont Clean Technologies and BASF all adding new types of sulphuric acid catalysts to their portfolios.

It’s not over yet

The turning of a new calendar year is a predictable waypoint in our lives. That is why it has always traditionally been a time for reflection on the past and looking to the future. Therefore, given how 2020 had turned out, perhaps there was an inevitable hope that the turning of the New Year and the start of 2021 might see an improvement in things in general, and of course the trajectory of the pandemic in particular, especially now that several vaccines have been approved for use in record time, and a massive programme of vaccination has begun across the world.

Sulphuric Acid News Roundup

In early October Tesla held a ‘battery day’ event at its headquarters in Fremont, California. Speaking at the event, company founder and CEO Elon Musk outlined his vision for the electric car industry over the coming decades, and spoke particularly to his ambitions for the nickel industry. He had already called for more mining of nickel earlier in the year, and has said that Tesla is developing cathodes that will contain higher nickel and no cobalt. The latter comes after a lawsuit against Tesla and several other high-tech US firms for allegedly supporting human rights violations by buying cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Musk echoed the potential ‘reputational risk’ for the nickel market and called for more sustainable nickel production, dangling the prospect of a “giant contract” with any miners that could produce nickel in an “environmentally sensitive way.” Tesla is reportedly in discussions with Vale and BHP as well as the Indonesian government concerning potential investments in nickel production.