The Role of Specialty Chemicals in Enhancing Product Performance

Vishal Sharma, Executive Director and CEO of Godrej Industries (Chemicals), in a recent interaction with Industry Outlook, shared his views on how bio-based and green chemistry trends in specialty chemicals enhance product performance across various industries and more.

With 27 years of global experience in specialty and process chemicals, Vishal Sharma previously worked at Ecolab and Diversey, excelling in operational excellence, financial performance, and sustainability. Known for driving transformative initiatives and fostering talent, Vishal provides thought leadership in leadership and strategy while observing economic and geopolitical trends. An avid reader, he is passionate about innovation and creating value for stakeholders.

How are Bio-Based and Green Chemistry trends in specialty chemicals enhancing product performance across various industries, and how are these trends influencing product development and market competitiveness?

The three key factors of product performance, product development, and market competitiveness are all distinct and important. Additionally, a fourth critical factor must be considered: the benefit to the end customer, which cannot be overlooked, as the end customer will purchase the product only if it offers a clear advantage over current alternatives.

The focus on driving green chemistries is driving strong R&D and development focus on both bio-based and green chemistries. However, getting the performance and competitiveness agenda in place is proving to be quite challenging. In my view, this is a work in progress across the entire spectrum of bio-based and green chemistries.

Businesses will not adopt products with a better sustainability profile if they are more expensive or if they don’t perform or don’t offer some additional benefits to the user. So, all product development should be carried out taking this stark reality into consideration. 

Can you highlight how specialty chemicals improve the durability and functionality of consumer goods like electronics, automotive parts, and textiles?

The very nature and existence of specialty chemicals is to give some added benefit wherever it is being used. It is all about value creation. Now this added benefit or value creation could be across many dimensions depending on what end product, segment, and application we are talking about. So in the personal care industry, it can be as simple as the rinse-ability of the face cleanser or the feel of the cream. In the metalworking fluids industry, it can be the temperature control or the particles carry over capacity. In the water treatment industry, it can be the scale prevention or corrosion reduction potential. In the oil and gas industry, it can be an improvement in lubricity or fluid flow enhancement. So there are thousands of specialty chemicals offering thousands of benefits across thousands of applications. In textiles color fixing and enhancing the durability of textiles is a key one.

How are specialty chemicals being used in advanced manufacturing processes to improve efficiency and product quality?

The recent new tech industries like EV batteries and chip manufacturing use a lot of specialty chemicals for various applications like cooling, heat transfer, phase change materials, etc. In the Chip manufacturing industry as an example, using ultra-pure water is very important and the cooling systems needed to manage the heat from the servers in data centers are all other examples of high-tech industries using specialty chemicals.

In what ways are regulations and sustainability concerns shaping the formulation and application of specialty chemicals to enhance product performance?

Simply put, regulations are really not in play currently from the perspective of specialty chemicals. They govern high-volume commodity chemicals. Sustainability concerns and desires have a role to play but are subject to the performance, price, and benefit as explained above in detail.

What challenges do businesses face in accurately selecting the right materials or solutions for their products, and how can these challenges be addressed?

The most common challenge is having the right formulations. There is not a single specialty chemical formula, it can change depending on what the customer needs, and the same product can have multiple grades. Hence active customer engagement is critical as solutions need to be customized, and all this takes time and investments. Then, finding the right ingredients may not be easy, as many times they will need to be sourced from other countries.

How can companies address the high costs of specialty chemicals while ensuring that their investment translates into significant performance gains for their products?

Cost is a relative term. Value is a better term to use. If the specialty chemical is supporting productivity increase, innovation, and better performance in the product the customer is making, it is well worth buying a more expensive chemical as it will enhance the competitiveness of the product and can drive innovation. So products that provide value to their buyers are successful, and products that don’t provide value are not successful. Companies that invest in R&D and development also need to make decent returns on the capital invested. Hence, buyers and markets will need to pay a fair price for the speciality products. The problem also is that some buyers may want specialty products with all their benefits at the price of commodity chemicals.

How do regulatory and environmental challenges affect the use of specialty chemicals, and what approaches can businesses take to ensure they meet compliance requirements while achieving their performance objectives?

Meeting regulatory and environmental requirements is the most basic level of compliance needed to stay in business today. And these vary by country, and even across industries. So companies need to ensure they are managing this part well, as non-compliance can be both damaging to the reputation as well as expensive in terms of fines and penalties by the respective authorities. As time passes, these requirements are only getting stricter, particularly in the EU, and pretty much across the world as well. So any business that wants to succeed long term will need to invest in the knowledge and execution resources to ensure it is meeting all the compliances as needed.  

Looking forward, what innovations in specialty chemicals are likely to drive future advancements in product performance, and how might these changes impact industry standards?

There are no standard or specific innovations in specialty chemicals that one can talk about. Every industry uses tens and hundreds of specialty chemicals, and the innovation pipeline and principles will differ by industry. There cannot be a comparison between the personal care and lubricant industry as an example. So simply put, the development efforts will all be focused towards enhancing performance, lowering total operating cost, or offering some other additional benefit to the customer while enhancing the sustainability profile. The answer in each segment is very specific and there is no generic answer here.