Avecia launches precious metal scavenger
to minimise metal loss and pollution in processing as well as
residual metal contamination of a product or intermediates.
Manufacturers using homogeneous precious metal catalysts need efficient process tools to both assure compliance with increasingly stringent regulatory limits on heavy metals and achieve good metal recovery and recycling.
Avecia's new product, called QuadraPure TU, is a macroporous resin bead with thiourea functionality, which has proved an efficient scavenger of palladium and other precious metals from both organic and aqueous solutions, says the UK firm.
The resin is capable of removing a range of heavy and precious metals, including platinum, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, gold, silver, copper, mercury, lead and cadmium. Very low levels of extractable impurities make it suitable for use in GMP compliant applications.
Avecia also makes an encapsulated palladium catalyst technology - Pd EnCat - launched in late 2003, and winner of the 2004 'Innovation of the Year' award from the UK's Chemical Industries Association.
The technology, which leads to higher throughput from process automation, was commercialised by Avecia following a research collaboration with Cambridge University and teams from Syngenta and AstraZeneca.
