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 The $3T chemical industry includes markets as diverse as commodity chemicals to specialties such as pharmaceutical intermediates. Commodity chemicals are sold by price whereas specialty chemicals are sold by performance.
Metathesis can deliver such products. Metathesis can be used to quickly synthesize novel products for further testing and can reduce manufacturing costs for established products. Many specialty chemical companies have used metathesis to develop new products. Some examples include:
- Cargill produces a variety of waxes from natural oil. These enhanced performance waxes have been quickly adapted in the industrial sector.
- Syngenta used metathesis to synthesize several discovery-stage pesticides including analogs of malayamycin, avermectin, and urea.
- Materia is using metathesis to produce mating-disruption pheromones for insect control. Our current pheromone products include those for the peach twig borer, light brown apple moth, and spruce budworm.
Cargill’s wax program demonstrates that metathesis is a technically and economically scalable process for specialty chemical manufacturing. With this proof of concept, Materia expects many discovery-stage products to advance onto the market.
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