ATP FOCUSED PROGRAM:

                Catalysis and Biocatalysis Technologies

                   FY 1995 NIST Funding: $15 million
           Estimated FY 1995-2000 NIST Funding: $160 million

Potential for U.S. Economic Benefit.

    Overstating the commercial importance of catalysts would take some
    creativity. Catalysts transform vast reservoirs of chemical
    feedstocks into products like nylon and polyethylene polymers,
    themselves the industrial starting point for thousands of products
    ranging from milk jugs and mountain-climbing rope to toys and
    textiles. Catalysts, along with their biologically derived forms
    known as biocatalysts, sculpt chemical precursors into the precise
    molecular shapes that are the heart of many pharmaceuticals. And
    that only hints at the roles catalysts play.

    In the ever more global commercial arena, catalysis becomes ever
    more central to the competitiveness of individual products,
    companies, industries, and countries. Those who develop new
    cost-effective catalysts and biocatalysts that improve the yields of
    products, cheapen or simplify processes, enable vendors to meet
    customers  needs more quickly and precisely, open up attractive
    products previously too costly for the marketplace, or reduce the
    amount of pollution produced during manufacturing processes will
    gain clear competitive advantages.

    In economic terms, catalysts add an estimated $2.4 trillion of value
    worldwide to raw chemical ingredients as scores of industries
    transform them into petroleum products, synthetic rubber and
    plastics, food products, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, or as they
    control vehicle and industry emissions. In the United States, over
    20 percent of all industrial products amounting to an annual value
    of $500 billion involve catalysis. The worldwide market for
    catalysts themselves, which come in forms as disparate as biological
    enzymes (specialized proteins) to fine metal powders to complex
    inorganic compounds called zeolites, amounted to about $7.8 billion
    in 1993 and is expected to rise to nearly $11 billion by 1998.
    Catalysis is very big business.

    Improving catalysts and catalysis processes promises several
    important payoffs downstream in manufacturing. New catalysts that
    are more precisely designed than ones in present use can maximize
    desired products while minimizing byproducts. New catalysts will
    enable engineers to produce the same products using less expensive
    feedstocks or even to replace feedstocks based on non-renewable and
    depletable resources, such as petroleum, with renewable ones, such
    as grains or switch grass. Another payoff, one that analysts predict
    will grow in relative importance in the coming years, will come from
    catalysis technologies that reduce pollution by obviating the need
    for organic solvents, eliminating troublesome byproducts that
    subsequently need to be disposed of, or converting pollution that is
    produced during manufacturing processes into more benign forms.
    Pollution prevention and abatement catalysts like these will play
    increasingly large roles in reducing the costs of environmental
    compliance while making products more attractive to environmentally
    concerned clientele.

Technology Challenge.

    The overall goal of the six-year, $160 million, cost-shared program
    in catalysis and biocatalysis technology is to accelerate industry s
    own long-term attempts to develop the analytical tools, synthetic
    abilities, and theoretical insight to identify, design, and
    implement new catalytic tools and processes of major economic
    importance.

    Leap-frog advances in catalysis of the sort targeted in this ATP
    focused program only can come from research of uncommon technical
    difficulty. At the bottom of every catalytic process are complex
    physical and chemical dramas playing out on tiny scales, often at
    arresting speeds and under surveillance-unfriendly conditions common
    in industrial processes, factors that traditionally have made
    scientific study and design of catalysis technologies extremely
    challenging, costly, or technically impossible. Yet it is precisely
    this sort of knowledge and investigation that harbors the greatest
    potential payoffs. Those who know more about catalysis and harness
    that knowledge into new and better catalysis technology will be the
    ones with the right stuff in tomorrow's commercial and environmental
    contexts. The industry-led approach facilitated through the ATP
    program is to improve the integration of catalysis and biocatalysis
    design and development with new process technology and chemical
    manufacturing. Said differently, the goal is a generic strategy for
    more cost-effective and efficient R&D for arriving at good catalysis
    solutions to any particular industrial problem.

Industry Commitment.

    A very small percentage of industry's research goes into the
    high-risk catalysis work within the scope of this program. The bulk
    of industrial catalysis research aims at incremental improvements in
    existing catalysis technologies. The need to improve the balance
    between high- and low-risk research was aired at a NIST workshop
    convened in April 1994. This event prompted intense industry
    discussions, which led to the submission of over 30 "white papers"
    representing more than 45 companies and several industry
    associations. These white papers outline specific commercially
    important R&D efforts in catalysis and biocatalysis technologies
    that many companies would like to pursue in a partnership with the
    ATP.

Significance of ATP Funds.

    The ATP focused program in catalysis and biocatalysis technologies
    will accelerate and leverage industry's investment in higher risk
    research that harbors greater payoffs in the form of sustained
    competitiveness than the shorter term research that now
    predominates. The ATP focused program will enable a roughly
    10-percent growth in industry's high-risk catalysis research, an
    area that now receives very limited government support despite
    increased vulnerability to technology breakthroughs in other
    countries. Just as important, the program will forge novel liaisons
    for catalysis technology research that would not have formed without
    the collective participation of many companies throughout the
    program's planning and implementation. In that sense, the ATP itself
    could be a catalyst of new ways of doing business.

For information about eligibility, how to apply, and cost-sharing
requirements, contact the Advanced Technology Program:

        (800)-ATP-FUND [(800)-287-3863]
        e-mail: atp@micf.nist.gov
        fax: (301) 926-9524

        A430 Administration Building
        National Institute of Standards and Technology
        Gaithersburg, MD  20899-0001

For technical information, contact:

        Linda Beth Schilling, Program Manager
        (301) 975-2887
        e-mail: schillin@micf.nist.gov
        fax: (301) 926-9524

December 1994