MEMS(ÏF TttEMEEK IN BRIEF: DUTCH TREAT E, W. (Bert) Meijer, an organic chemistry professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, is one of four winners of this year's NWO/Spinoza Prize, known as the "Dutch Nobel Prize." Each winner will receive approximately $1.4 million for research from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Meijer's work concerns dendrimers and supramolecular polymers.
BUSINESS
PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY SHOWCASE Several companies announce expansion plans, new ventures at annual expo
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HE WORLD S FINE CHEMICALS
industry once again put its expertise on display last week in London at the 12th annual Conference on Pharma ceutical Ingredients & Interme diates (CPhI). Concerns that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would adversely affect attendance gen erally proved unfounded. And although some U.S. and Japanese regulars were absent, there was the usual spate of announcements. Degussa announced that its fine chemicals business unit will increase sales at least 25% over the next several years from the
current level ofroughly $ 920 mil lion. Among its supporting plans is the expansion of its exclusive synthesis business in new active pharmaceutical ingredients. It also plans a new plant in Edmon ton, Alberta, for synthesis devel opment and production of new pharmaceutical actives, and it has brought its new $ 13 million plant and laboratory in Galena, Kan., through successful U.S. FDA inspections for custom produc tion of the new ectoparasiticide vS-methoprene. Degussa plans to optimize its global integrated production sys
SCIENCE
EFFICIENT MINIATURE REFRIGERATORS Jump in performance of thermoelectric coolers may broaden applications
A
NEW COMPOSITE MATERIAL
promises to significantly improve the performance of thermoelectric cooling devices. Unlike conventional compres sor-based refrigerators, thermo electric coolers made from semi conductors have no moving mechanical parts and can be miniaturized. However, they require a lot of energy and their performance—which is quanti fied as "ZT" —isn't as good as conventional cooling technology Despite years of research, Z T ofthermoelectric coolers as meas ured at room temperature has barely exceeded 1, notes Rama
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Venkatasubramanian, senior pro gram director of Research Trian gle Institute's (RTI) Center for Semiconductor Research. But according to Ali Shakouri, an assis tant professor of electrical engi neering at U C Santa Cruz who studies thin-film thermoelectric coolers, Venkatasubramanian and his colleagues have now achieved "an important breakthrough. They improved room-tempera ture ZT" significantly for the first time in almost 40 years. The RTI researchers achieved a ZTof 2.4 in p-type lattices built by alternating engineered thin films of bismuth telluride and
tem. Following the acquisition of Britain's fine chemicals producer Laporte, Degussa has production at 18 sites on three continents, but now, says Peter Nagjer, head of the business unit, "the challenge is to intelligendy combine the strengths of the different sites." Lonza unveiled plans to expand microbial fermentation manu facturing at its Kourim facility in the Czech Republic. The com pany will spend $2.3 million to boost capacity by 50% and add downstream processing facilities. Meanwhile, Avecia and Bayer both announced investments in the kilogram-scale manufacture of pharmaceutical ingredients. Avecia will build a pilot plant at its Huddersfield, England, site designed for fast changeovers between products in the early phase of development. Bayer will build a cGMP "kilo lab" in Leverkusen, Germany to open in the fourth quarter of next year. -MICHAEL MCCOY, PATRICIASHORT
antimony telluride and a Z T of 1.4 in η-type lattices of bismuth telluride and bismuth telluride selenide [Nature, 413, 597 (2001)}. T h e Z T of a thermo electric device can be approxi mated by averaging the Z T of its n- and p-type components. Once the average Z T reaches 1.5, Venkatasubramanian says, it "opens the door to a huge num ber of applications." These include temperature control for a lab on a chip, automotive heating and cooling applications, and cooling of computer chips. Because the production temper ature for these thermoelectric devices is below 300 °C, they can be built on silicon chips after the chips have been processed. They can also be used for high-speed cooling for applications such as fiber-optic switches. Shakouri cautions that reliabil ity of the system must be tested, "since very high current densities are needed to operate thin-film coolers."-S0PHIE WILKINSON HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
