Fluoroelastomer Specialists
That all changed in December 2016, when the Las Vegas Convention Center upgraded its wireless service just in time for the 2017 show. Now the facility boasts one of the largest distributed antenna systems in the U.S. With the boosting power of 14 cell towers, the property-wide installation is equipped to serve 100,000-plus delegates simultaneously at faster download speeds than most corporate networks. It’s at the apex of today’s technology and ready to be upgraded to the 5G wireless standard already on the horizon. What many don’t know is that the new digital installation depends on advanced fluoropolymers to achieve the connection improvements that CES delegates experienced for the first time this year as well as the astonishing leaps to come.
As radical as this change was for those accustomed to the connectivity frustrations of years past, it wasn’t really a breakthrough. Instead, the Las Vegas Convention Center skillfully applied the best of today’s technology to an urgent market problem and, along the way, set itself up to be ahead of the next challenge. It was a masterful application of incremental innovation to achieve a significant improvement in performance.
The chemical industry, too, is paying close attention to opportunities for incremental innovation. We’ve already made and enjoyed the easy chemical breakthroughs, and now we need to apply the same diligent discovery ethic to reinvention. Today’s chemical and materials science advancements are less the result of fortuitous, blue-sky lab work and more the outcome of disciplined development pipelines that tweak and build on well-understood chemistry to meet emerging market needs.
There will always be the need for new molecule development. The world still needs as-yet undiscovered polymers and compounds. But the reinvention and reapplication of proven chemistry can solve many current and future problems. Disruptive innovation, such as the coming era of 5G wireless connectivity, often depends on established materials.
ESTABLISHED CHEMISTRY AND FUTURE BREAKTHROUGHS
Meeting emerging customer needs is more complicated than just asking partners what they want to buy. An innovative chemical company needs to learn the strategies and objectives of its customers and emerging consumer demands to anticipate future needs. That intelligence gathering is part of a multipronged approach that includes close study and analysis of mega-market trends, partnerships with academic institutions, participation in industry conferences, and other vehicles for keeping pace with the future and driving innovation forward. Outfitted with this information, a technology road map gets customer and supplier together in a shared R&D process that meets future needs, often through new uses of existing products.
By identifying a critical emerging market with strong future implications—energy storage—The Chemours Company, for example, created new life for its NafionTM line of membranes and dispersions for the chlor-alkali industry.
Read more: THE REINCARNATION OF EXISTING CHEMICAL PRODUCTS
