Precious metal catalysis: How to make your formulation business more viable with the aid of your own API

Dr Chidambaram Mandan, Assistant VP- R&D, Hindustan Platinum, began his talk by explaining about the salient features of heterogenous catalysis – support, properties of the support, chemistry of the support, metal, loading of the metal, dispersion of the metal, metal location, filtration of catalyst, activity and selectivity and recycle. He said that heterogeneous catalysis, as a science, includes defining how the catalyst synthesis method influences physical and chemical properties of a catalyst and how it influences the catalyst’s performance.

Later, he also shared a few case studies with the audience. The first one was about an anti-viral drug called Valaciclovir which involved a robust catalyst and improved recovery. The second one included the lapatinib intermediate (anticancer and anti-asthamatic), wherein getting high pure with high conversion of a desired product in such a complex molecule was a challenge. The third one involved the bi-metallic fixed bed catalysts – a new venture into mono and bi-metallic fixed bed catalysts to cater to petrochemicals and fine-chemical industries.

Next, he talked about how to use a catalyst. “Using powder-precious metal catalyst is tricky. Proper usage will benefit in metal recovery from spent catalyst,” he said. After this, he explained about sampling methods of metal recovery as different-natured spent materials need different sampling methods. Talking about the backward integration process, he also said that it’s time for drug formulators to think about backward integrating, wherever possible.