It seems like we’ve had endless headlines screaming about the collapsing world economy. Scary times for everyone. If you’re one of the many chemists who has been made redundant recently in the ‘restructuring’ of big pharma (or indeed if you’ve been made redundant from any sector), hang on in there. I know exactly what it’s like – I won’t offer any trite homilies, especially when the job market looks so bleak, but I wish you luck for the future.
On a less personal note, it seems that the credit crunch is affecting research in other, less obvious ways. I was talking to a friend recently, and he commented that his company is having difficulty finding reliable supplies of acetonitrile. He told me that, apparently, one of the biggest uses of acetonitrile is for making certain car parts. But in the current economic climate, no one is buying cars, and so the demand for car parts has evaporated. You might think this would create a glut of acetonitrile – but acetonitrile manufacturers have realized that the bottom has dropped out of their market, so they’ve stopped making it. I don’t think the world is about to run out of this solvent, but it’s another example of how nothing seems certain anymore.
Have any of you experienced other unexpected side-effects from the economic crisis?
Andy
Andrew Mitchinson (Senior Editor, Nature)
The economic crisis seems to change the ratio of fundamental/applied research in favor of the former. Contracts with industry are frozen, while support for academic programs is (fortunately!) less affected.
Back to alma mater 😉
Funny… I remember hearing about the acetonitrile shortage a few weeks ago. Proof of complexity, perhaps?
Mercifully, my work is all computational, so it shouldn’t be much affected by the credit crunch. Well… provided electricity remains affordable. 😉
I can confirm that there is an acetonitrile shortage due to the slowdown in car manufacturing.
But there are alternatives – an analytical services outsourcing business called Melbourn Scientific, based near Cambridge, UK has been promoting ‘green chemistry’ for some time and says that this is a ‘Wake Up Call’ to start looking at more environmentally friendly alternatives.
See
https://www.laboratorytalk.com/news/mel/mel118.html
The problem with acetonitrile is that no one manufactures it. It is produced as a byproduct of acrylonitrile manufacture (~2% of the acrylonitrile). Acrylonitrile is the “A” in ABS plastics and since the economy is down, there is less demand for acrylonitrile, less demand means less production of acrylonitrile and less acetonitrile byproduct.
You’re nearly right, in fact the correct reason for the shortage has been alluded to in the comments. Cars use acrylonitrile which produces acetonitrile as a by product so stopping production has reduced stocks. Also, a few plants closed down because of the Olympics and Hurricane Ike. One of the [green] alternatives is to recycle acetonitrile using some sort of solvent recycler. The best ones on the market will recycle around 90% of the solvent. You have to ask why people didn’t start doing this ages ago.