Chemistry World Blog

A $34bn LNG project in Australia – BASF commits $50m to Li–S battery technology – And US makes emissions data available

CHEMICAL – Japanese group Inpex and French oil group Total have signed off a $34 billion (£22 million) investment in liquefied natural gas (LNG) activities in Australia. The project will involve developing the Ichthys gas field, off the north west coast of Australia, and constructing a 900km gas pipeline together for transporting the gas to the onshore LNG plant near Darwin in the Northern Territory. The project will start producing LNG at the end of 2016. The two LNG plants will each have a capacity of 4.2 million tons per year, making them among the biggest in the world. The move means that by 2017 Australia will have overtaken Qatar as the top LNG exporter, according to Reuters.

CHEMICAL – German chemical major BASF has paid $50 million for a stake in privately owned US company Sion Power, which specialises in lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries. The move builds on a partnership started in 2009 for developing Li–S battery technology for high-energy applications, in particular electric vehicles. Sion describes itself as the global leader in the technology. Researchers say Li–S batteries could prove better than lithium ion batteries in many applications because of higher energy density and the low cost of sulfur, an abundant by-product of many industrial processes. But commercialisation is currently hampered by low stability and efficiency.

CHEMICAL – How much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases did US chemical manufacturers pump out in 2010? You can now see for yourself thanks to an interactive register produced by the Environmental Protection Agency. The register holds data from nine sectors including data from 541 chemical sites. The biggest producer? The nitrogen products site owned by CF Industries at Donaldsonville, Louisiana, making ammonia, urea and nitric acid, which reported 6.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (although the company profile shows that some of the carbon dioxide was captured and therefore not emitted).

CHEMICAL – US company Crystal IS, which specialises in antimicrobial LED technology, is to become a subsidiary of Japanese semiconductor device manufacturer Asahi Kasei. The companies have not disclosed financial details. The Crystal IS technology uses UVC light, which falls in the 200–280nm wavelength range and is therefore more energetic than UVA and UVB, making it capable of killing microbes by destroying DNA.

PHARMACEUTICAL – A US court has approved a proposed $4.5 million payment by Eli Lilly to settle claims of improper marketing of antipsychotic Zyprexa (olanzapine) by a group of healthcare providers, according to news reports. The group says that the action by Lilly increased costs. The ruling means that the claims can be handled as one ‘class action’ rather than multiple cases. Zyprexa is a former big seller that is now facing generic erosion following the loss of patent protection in 2011.

Andrew Turley