Electronic Business-to-Business Marketplace Transformation in the Chemical Industry: Will the Second Wave Succeed Where the First has Failed?

The global chemical sales are expected to be worth over €6,000 bn by 2030 and this offers a very significant market size for businesses to be transacted electronically. It is generally believed that the first wave of the electronic business-to-business marketplace featured very strongly into the chemical industry sometime in the late 1990’s, but in just over a few years many of these electronic marketplaces started to close down or being merged with others, and later on they too disappeared from the chemical industry. Many of them had failed to sustain themselves in the marketplace and survived. From 2005 onwards, it became apparent that the second wave of electronic marketplaces started to enter the chemical industry again. Electronic marketplaces were being set up by chemical manufacturers and distributors, with many of them even setting up multiple web storefronts, to promote their products. This research will look into the chemical distribution market size, supply chain activities, as well as the various electronic marketplaces present in the chemical industry. The Author will investigate into the reasons why the first wave of chemical electronic marketplaces did not manage to sustain themselves in the market and the possible reasons for their failure. The types of electronic marketplaces during the second wave were investigated in great detail. What are the differences in the types of electronic platforms in the second wave and will they stand a chance to survive this time round, when many of them have failed in the first wave? This research will attempt to investigate the possible strategies through the digital marketplace, by both chemical manufacturers and distributors, in their effort to capture greater market share.

The Electricity Rebound Effect: Empirical Evidence From the Chinese Chemical Industry

The Chinese government has adopted many policies to save energy and electricity in the chemical industry by improving technology and reforming its electricity market. The improved electricity efficiency and the electricity reform may indirectly reduce expected energy and electricity savings by decreasing the effective electricity price and the marginal cost of electricity services. To analyze the above issues, this paper employs the Morishima Elasticity of Substitution of the electricity cost share equation which is estimated by the DOLS method. The results show that: 1) There exists a rebound effect in the Chinese chemical industry, but it is quite large because the electricity price is being controlled by the government; 2) the reform of the electricity market reduces the rebound effect to 73.85%, as electricity price begins to reflect cost information to some extent; 3) there is still a lot of space for the reform to improve, and the rebound effect could be reduced further once the electricity price is adjusted to transfer the market information more correctly. In order to succeed in saving electricity and decreasing the rebound effect in the chemical industry, the policy implications are provided from perspectives of the improved energy efficiency and electricity pricing mechanism.

Catalysis in Zeolites and Zeotypes—Cornerstone of Chemical Industry and Permanent Subject of Research

Mankind has been aware of zeolites since 1756, when the Swede, Axel Fredrik Cronstedt (1722–1765), observed the strange behavior of a certain natural mineral (probably stellerite with some amounts of stilbite) [...]

Climate Change in the Attention Arena of the Middle Class

Good intentions by the middle class are not always well guided and do not always lead to measurable or significant results. For example, efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions may hold broad appeal but can still have negligible impact. Therefore, it is suggested to embark on “Apollo projects”, which bundle the potential and willingness of the middle class. These projects should focus on the development of specific technologies, with economic advantages to support their spread throughout the world. Doing so will harness the middle class in support of greenhouse gas emission reductions in the gigaton-range. Such pan-national projects, for example, could address emission-free ship- or air-propulsion, the electrification of heating or of processes in the chemical industry.

In-situ Growth of Phosphorus-doped Boron Nitride on Commercial Alumina as a Robust Catalyst for Direct Dehydrogenation of Ethylbenzene

Direct dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene to styrene catalyzed by metal-free materials is one of the most challenging topics in the chemical industry currently. Here, PBN@Al2O3(N) synthesized by in-situ growth of phosphorus-doped...