One of the most remarkable demonstrations of chemistry’s power is space exploration. From the first unmanned missions in the late 1950s to the space shuttle program and now Artemis, innovations in rocket fuel and engine technologies continue to advance the reach, capability, and sustainability of space exploration, showing in real-time how chemistry is powering this field.

Optimized rocket fuel is key to mission success

Rockets rely on various combinations of fuel and oxidizers to generate the tremendous power needed to overcome Earth’s gravity. Oxidizers and fuels are stable elements at room temperature, but when mixed and triggered by a heat source, they create an explosive reaction that provides the rocket’s thrust.

By adjusting the ratio of fuel to oxidizer, engineers can control various aspects of the rocket’s performance. Each combination provides a unique set of characteristics, benefits, and drawbacks, impacting performance measures like thrust efficiency, as well as other considerations such as toxicity, cost, and safety. As such, choosing the best propellant package for each voyage is a critical decision that depends on many variables related to the rocket’s mission.

Gaseous propellants, for example, are impractical for most long-distance rockets because of the large volume that would be required, but compressing and cooling these substances into their corresponding liquid phases provides an optimal volume-to-power ratio for large-scale rocket applications. Some propellants, however, have extremely low boiling points and require cryogenic cooling at temperatures below –150 °C (–238 °F) to liquefy. That can be a significant drawback to using these fuels for rocket propulsion, so the benefits must outweigh the costs and challenges of this requirement for a specific mission to justify their selection.

Two important performance characteristics of propellants, which are sometimes confused, are thrust and specific impulse. Thrust measures the propellant’s reaction force potential, or the amount of weight the rocket will be able to lift. Specific impulse (Isp) defines how efficiently a propellant can convert its mass into thrust, based on the time that a certain quantity of propellant can push a load. Engines using propellants with a high specific impulse tend to have lower thrust but use their propellant’s mass more efficiently. In short, they get greater gas mileage.

Table 1 compares the key properties of common rocket fuel packages. The RS-25 engine employed by NASA’s Artemis Space Launch System (SLS) rocket uses the LOX/LH₂ propellant package. However, rockets being developed by some commercial organizations, including SpaceX’s Raptor and Blue Origin’s BE-4, are powered by the Liquid Methane/LOX package.

Among modern rocket propellants, LOX/LH₂ exhibits the highest Isp value. That efficiency and a track record of reliability are the primary reasons why the LOX/LH₂ package has been commonly used as a rocket propellant for the last five decades, in spite of both atoms requiring cryogenic cooling. Also, while other propellants release large quantities of polluting chemicals and greenhouse gases after combustion, the primary by-product produced by the combustion of LOX/LH₂ is water, making it a more sustainable fuel.  

Note: *RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1) is a highly refined form of kerosene and is widely used in liquid rocket engines (i.e., the Saturn V rocket engine).

Radical reaction chemistry of LOX/LH₂ rockets

Hydrogen and oxygen are stable elements that will not spontaneously react when mixed at room temperature. For a reaction to occur, H–H and O=O covalent bonds need to be broken. When enough energy is supplied to overcome the H–H and O=O bonding energy, a chain reaction will occur until water is formed. This reaction toward water’s stable structure releases large amounts of energy during H₂ combustion with O2.

Despite this reaction’s apparent simplicity, H₂ combustion with O2 is complex and involves several intermediary reactions with H and O radicals. The main reactions leading to the formation of water are listed in Figure 1. Chain-branching reactions occur when one radical generates two or more radicals (Figure 1, reactions 3 and 4). Because these reactions produce more reactive radicals than they consume, they accelerate, explaining the explosive nature of the reaction.

These radical reactions don’t always happen in the exact order displayed in Figure 1, and other radicals not mentioned here may be formed through other chain reaction schemes. Propellant mixture, pressure, and temperature also influence H₂ combustion kinetic mechanisms.

Advancing engine design to power Artemis

In addition to fuel optimization, rocket engine design is equally critical to maximizing the power of modern rockets. Today’s rocket engine designs leverage foundational innovations developed during Germany’s World War II V-2 rocket program. The availability of new materials and other technological innovations have allowed engineers to advance these designs to increase the power, durability, reliability, and efficiency needed to power modern space missions.

Designed in the 1970s by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the RS-25 engine was originally developed and used for NASA Space Shuttle missions. Five generations of innovation later, the RS-25s that power Artemis’ SLS rocket are sophisticated cryogenic engines that incorporate decades of technology advancements and design optimizations, making them some of the most efficient and powerful rocket engines ever produced.

To create a powerful and consistent thrust, rocket engines need to be fed with a large volume of high-velocity liquid propellant via the turbopump. The first version of the turbopump (Figure 2) was developed by V-2 engineers in the 1940s. It was revolutionary in its design and performance, with one steam turbine rotating at 4,000 rpm to drive centrifugal pumps for both the fuel and oxidizer. More than 60 years later, the modern turbopump is still one of the most critical and complex components responsible for the performance of modern rocket engines.

U.S. Manned Rocket Propulsion Evolution

The RS-25 engines in the Artemis rocket utilize the LOX/LH₂ cryogenic propellant package based on its superior specific impulse. However, a significant difference between the densities and flow rates of LH₂ and LOX prevents the RS-25 from operating on a single turbopump. Hydrogen’s density is extremely low (71 g/L), which means that it will take 2.7 times as much LH₂ to proportionally match the LOX quantity for efficient combustion to happen. To accommodate these very different cryogenic liquids and their physical properties the RS-25 uses two separate turbopumps.

These modern high-pressure turbopumps are feats of engineering. Their turbines contain dozens of blades that are only the size of a quarter. Rotating between 28,000 and 35,000 rpm, each blade provides more power than a Corvette engine, allowing these turbopumps to generate tens of thousands of horsepower.

Space aspirations driving innovation across industries

Rocket fuel and engine technologies are obvious areas of innovation driven by the space program. However, the current focus on returning humans to the moon and eventually reaching Mars also serves as a catalyst to accelerate new research across a wide range of industries including medicine, material science, communications, electronics, and even agriculture. Many of these innovations, in addition to enabling space missions, result in improvements to products that benefit all of us here on Earth as well.

Interested in other new technologies being developed for the Artemis mission? Read more about innovations in food science that will nourish astronauts heading to the moon and beyond.

Maximizing digitalization ROI: A challenge for pharmaceutical businesses

On average, drug companies spend 10 to 15 years developing, validating, and marketing a new product. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic and successful, lightning-fast mRNA vaccine development shed light on the potential of digital tools to accelerate processes. This major event deepened the pharmaceutical industry's interest in undergoing digital transformation and implementing cognitive tools into their processes. However, digitalization can be complicated and difficult to achieve.

About 55% of pharmaceutical firms report using digital technologies to some degree. However, a lack of expertise in knowledge management and experience with digital tools often transforms this smart initiative into a debatable investment. With roughly 70% of digitalization programs failing, pharma companies need to reevaluate where to invest their digitalization dollars and optimize their deployment strategies to unlock competitive advantages and generate life-changing pharmaceuticals.

With a deep understanding of robust knowledge management, cognitive tools, and how they intertwine, pharma companies can revolutionize their processes at all levels and breed better global healthcare.

Digitization and knowledge management: Facilitating company-wide data access to accelerate innovation

Pharmaceutical companies generate massive volumes of information, from ingredient information, formulation, and clinical trial data to processing time, production, and quality control reports. These new documents quickly pile up when using existing legacy information sources and siloed databases, making search and retrieval challenging. Unstructured and unharmonized, past experiment results get lost in the “dark data” realm, accounting for an estimated 55% of all organization knowledge.

Without easy access to historical data across departments, pharmaceutical companies are likely to repeat previous mistakes or investigate questions that already have answers. To accelerate innovation and significantly shorten product time to market, digitalization is key.

Pharma companies are transforming historical documents, such as lab journals, datasets, and reports, into searchable assets in a connected knowledge management platform. This allows individuals throughout the organization to access ingredient-level information, supplier details, regulatory guidelines, and other scientific and business intelligence. These companies are taking this a step further by introducing an online user interface to connect teams in different departments and regions.

Through thoughtful digitalization, pharma companies can further facilitate, streamline, and expand R&D, manufacturing, and commercialization while promoting interdisciplinary work and international collaboration.

Streamlining drug development: Accelerating therapeutics innovation with cognitive tools

The age of digitalization is transforming the pharmaceutical industry, providing researchers with revolutionary tools to improve time to market and safety.

The development of COVID-19 vaccines in less than a year propelled Pfizer into the center of the pharmaceutical scene. While Pfizer’s workforce efficiency is indisputable, the company’s unprecedented response time and competitive advantage are rooted in well-established pipelines implemented long before the pandemic. A pioneer in digital strategies, Pfizer understood the transformative potential of knowledge management, data analytics, and AI initiatives for the pharmaceutical sector and incorporated them into its daily operations.

With decades of expertise and research data available, pharma giants can narrow lead candidates to the best, safest options. For instance, AI-driven algorithms combined with previous clinical data allowed researchers to design and supervise extensive clinical trials with real-time predictive models of COVID-19 attack rates. Pushing the boundaries beyond the laboratory’s doors, knowledge management strategies and AI models enabled inventory prediction and supply chain monitoring, streamlining vaccine development, distribution, and accessibility.

Robust data foundations and cognitive tools deployed throughout their value chain gave Pfizer a definite head-start in the COVID-19 vaccine race. From initial drug candidate selection to treatment monitoring, the power of cognitive tools in accelerating drug development has been proven. However, AI predictions only reach their full capabilities if properly trained with clean, curated, and protected datasets. To launch or optimize AI in pharma R&D workflows, you must first evaluate the quality of your data and knowledge management infrastructure.

Digitalization and data security: Protecting proprietary information, patient privacy, and research integrity

Through extensive drug discovery phases and clinical trials, the pharma industry has access to critical manufacturing processes and patient health information. This is precious data for competitors and malevolent individuals. With the growth of cyberattacks (nearly 1 every 39 seconds) and medical identity theft (35% in 2019), implementing robust security strategies in the pharma industry is now an urgent matter.

Reports define pharma companies as prime targets of cyber attackers, with 53% of privacy breaches resulting from malicious activity. Confidential information spread across different departments, platforms, and software makes it challenging for companies to guarantee data protection and a secure environment. Implementing an organization-wide knowledge management interface can enforce strict user access control while eliminating data breaches. Cloud-based collaborative platforms with secure channels where researchers and clinicians can safely share sensitive information and avoid risks of device corruption are becoming more common in the pharmaceutical industry. However, transitioning from siloed on-premises legacy solutions to cloud-based platforms or custom hybrid versions is complex and slow to adopt. To streamline the transition to updated knowledge management ecosystems while safeguarding data, pharma companies should look to digital transformation partners with knowledge in their field.

Digital transformation in pharma

Digitalization has the potential to drastically transform the pharmaceutical industry, allowing for better knowledge management, accelerated innovation, and improved data security while reducing drug time to market. However, an ill-conceived digital transformation strategy can result in wasted resources and increased risk.

As pharma’s digital transformation continues to evolve, digital technologies and cognitive tools are finding their way into all aspects of the industry, allowing for faster drug development and expanded treatment options for a growing number of conditions. Digital transformation strives to bring innovative healthcare solutions in a sustainable, responsible, and accessible way.

To learn more about digital transformation and data management, check out our case studies with CAS Custom Services^SM.

Gone are the days of a countertop full of products and long-winded cosmetic routines. In today’s fast-paced society, consumers are looking for that one product that can do it all.

Enter multifunctional cosmetics.

Whether it’s a skincare product offering hydration, anti-aging, and blemish treatment properties, or an anti-frizz, strand-repair, in-shower conditioning hair mask, consumers are demanding more of their cosmetic products than ever before. This demand, however, puts pressure on the cosmetics industry to keep formulating products that tackle multiple concerns at once.

By keeping track of the latest developments in multifunctional ingredients, including chitosan and lignin, as well as novel delivery systems, such as the use of nanotechnology, formulators can continue to deliver innovative products to this fast-moving and high-demand market.

Hero ingredients

One of the great tools the cosmetics industry can use to formulate multifunctional cosmetics is so-called ‘hero ingredients.’ These ingredients offer multiple benefits simultaneously, enabling formulations with only a few ingredients to tackle multiple concerns.

Some common cosmetic hero ingredients include:

With greater consumer interest in slimmed-down ingredient lists and ‘clean cosmetics’, hero ingredients are an easy sell to people looking for a single-ingredient answer to all their cosmetic needs. Not only do these ingredients help with formulation, but many are viewed as ‘natural’ or ‘clean’, providing a clear marketing advantage.

Herculean hydrators

Hydrators are among some of the most versatile cosmetic ingredients. These ingredients often provide hydration for skin, hair, and nails and can be used to develop multipurpose products for all of these applications. Hydrating serums and oils are now being marketed as a single replacement for a collection of products, including hand creams, face moisturizers, body moisturizers, and hair conditioning masks.

Hydrating ingredients can do more than target multiple body areas. They can be used in multifunctional cosmetics, which also provide anti-aging, antioxidant, and antimicrobial benefits. Plant oils, including shea butter and coconut oil, are common candidates within the cosmetic industry. However, new research has identified chitosan as a novel contender.

Chitosan can be used on skin and hair, where it can hydrate and protect. The benefits of chitosan are thought to include:

• Humectant properties
• Emollient properties
• Antimicrobial properties
• Skin conditioning
• UV protection
• Antioxidant properties

Amazing antioxidants

Chitosan, as an ingredient with antioxidant properties, will join other cosmetic staples such as shea butter, coconut oil, niacinamide, and propolis. Each ingredient brings its own multifunctionality, creating a range of options when formulating cosmetics with antioxidant activity.

Another recent candidate for antioxidant cosmetics is lignin. Derived from natural sources including sugarcane, lignin has distinct antioxidant activity, which could be harnessed for cosmetic applications. In a 2023 study, lignin was shown to have the same or slightly greater ability to scavenge for free radicals as the cosmetic standard. The study also showed that lignin can be used as a natural cosmetic pigment as well as UV protection, highlighting its potential as a hero ingredient of the future.

Spectacular sun protection

Lignin’s potential in UV protection arguably surpasses that of its antioxidant properties. Shown to be a potent UV-blocker both in vitro and on human volunteers, lignin presents an exciting opportunity for the future of UV-protective multifunctional cosmetics. With increasing advice about sun protection, consumers are looking for SPF products that also target other skin concerns.

Another avenue of research is the addition of rosmarinic acid to sunscreen formulations, which was shown to increase the SPF by 41% as well as adding antioxidant properties. A key barrier for SPF containing multifunctional cosmetic formulations is that any new ingredient cannot compromise the sun protection of the product, making ingredients like rosmarinic acid, which can enhance SPF as well as bring other benefits, an exciting opportunity for formulators.

Tremendous blemish treatments

Blemish treatment products often need to have more than one function, including skin hydration, wound healing, and antioxidant properties. Ingredients that are anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial can help fight the causes of acne blemishes, and those providing wound healing and skin barrier repair can reduce scarring. In this way, blemish treatment ingredients need to provide versatility even within their main function.

With a wide range of antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory ingredients in use within the cosmetics industry, formulators have their pick of active ingredients. Aloe vera, witch hazel, salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, and retinol are all common choices for blemish treatment, providing antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties to products like moisturizers.

It’s not just the hero ingredients themselves, though. Innovative delivery methods for the ingredients can increase their efficacy and longevity. Recently, a system for nano-based delivery of cosmetic anti-acne ingredients was developed to release the active ingredients slowly once in contact with skin and showed increased antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.

The ultimate formulation

The cosmetics industry is facing the challenge of creating more advanced and versatile formulations than ever before as consumers continue to slim down their cosmetic routines. Making full use of hero ingredients to pack more functionality into cosmetic formulas can help developers achieve this goal and keep their products at the forefront of this new wave of multifunctional cosmetics.

Investing in up-and-coming hero ingredients like chitosan and lignin can help formulators push forward in their product development, and the adoption of novel delivery systems using nanotechnology can get more functionality from existing ingredients than ever before. Staying up to date with the latest research in multifunctional cosmetics will continue to support innovative development and break the boundaries of what consumers can expect from their cosmetic products.

Read more about how CAS can help you create the ultimate formulation by learning how we partnered with Citrine to predict deformulations using AI.

With consumers changing their diets for personal and health reasons, as well as a societal push towards more sustainable food practices, plant-based meats have soared in popularity over the last few years. Innovations in the sector are continuing to increase the quality of meat alternatives and produce more options than ever before, giving rise to a diverse and competitive market.

Since plant-based meat sustainability is one of the biggest drivers for the public’s increased interest in these products, consumers are looking for alternatives that can be used to reduce their meat intake and lower their environmental impact without sacrificing their favorite food experiences. How can manufacturers provide a quality, sustainable product that meets their consumers’ high expectations of taste and texture?

How sustainable are plant-based alternatives?

The negative environmental impacts of the meat farming industry have long been documented and understood. Emissions caused by both livestock and the industry itself account for around 15% of global greenhouse gasses. With these emissions predicted to increase by 9% by 2031, solutions that reduce the demand for meat are more critical than ever before.

Plant-based meat innovations are one such solution. When dealing with carbon emissions alone, they are up to 120 times more carbon efficient than meat products. A recent 2021 study found that plant-based patties have a 77% smaller climate change burden than beef patties, with reduced land and water use, eutrophication, and acidification.

The main criticism levied against plant-based meat sustainability is that meat alternative products may not be as sustainable as a diet of plant-based whole foods. While a valid debate, meat alternatives offer meat-eaters a more achievable behavioral change than switching to a plant-based whole foods diet, giving them an easier transition to a sustainable solution.

Making the switch

Despite widespread concern about the climate crisis and understanding of the environmental impact of animal agriculture, many consumers still find it difficult to cut meat from their diets. Wanting to be more sustainable is often not enough to drive the behavioral change of eating less or no meat. Plant-based meat substitutes offer the perfect avenue to sidestep this conundrum.

By developing plant products that have a similar taste and textural experience to animal products, innovators can offer consumers the chance to enjoy the best of both worlds. Targeting this flexitarian audience is key for manufacturers, as meat substitutes are highly sought after by consumers who don’t want to transition fully to a vegetarian diet. A review from the University of Bath reported that 90% of those eating plant-based meat and dairy still included meat in their diets.

Consumers are buying into the idea that they can increase their sustainability by replacing some of their meat intake with plant-based meat alternatives—but do these products deliver that sustainability? Research has shown that they do. Despite being small and achievable, these changes can have huge impacts on the environment. One study found that replacing as little as 5% of German meat consumption with pea protein could reduce greenhouse emissions by 8 million tons a year.

In this way, manufacturers are forging an authentic path toward a greener future—one that is more accessible for most people. By continuing to innovate and increase the sustainability of their products, manufacturers can keep appealing to their consumers’ environmental goals and continue to encourage more investment in plant-based meat sustainability.

Choosing a plant protein

The choice of plant protein is at the core of developing any new meat substitute product. Protein sources can affect the taste and texture properties of the product, its nutritional value, and its sustainability—all areas where manufacturers need to appeal to their consumers. The considerable growth in consumer demand has led to the expected worth of the plant protein market to be $162 billion by 2030. This vast industry now consists of a range of sources for innovators to choose from, some more established than others, with current and future sources including:

Soy, wheat, and pea protein sources have the benefits of low cost, good supply, and high nutritional value, making them the first to become established within the industry. Building on these advantages, the new wave of sources, including corn, rice, chickpea, fungi, and canola, focuses on increased functionality for product development. This will give developers greater control to create products with the taste and textural attributes consumers are seeking.

Taking this one step further, future paths such as algae and cellular alternatives strive to be the most sustainable protein sources yet. While consumer attitudes still need to change surrounding these proteins, they are highly renewable and have an extremely low environmental impact, offering increased plant-based meat sustainability.

The future of plant-based meat sustainability

Plant-based meat alternatives have a considerable role to play in the future of food sustainability. As an easy way for meat-eaters to reduce their animal product consumption without having to change their food behaviors, meat alternatives can encourage a much larger percentage of people to reduce their meat intake with drastic environmental impacts.

This environmental change hinges on companies developing enticing products that mimic the taste, texture, and appearance of meat as closely as possible. As research pushes forward with more sustainable plant protein sources, plant-based meat is likely to continue to increase in popularity. To learn more about sustainable agriculture and new approaches in fertilizers that will help reduce carbon emissions, read our recent article on sustainable agriculture.

Green chemistry starts with green catalysts, but what is the latest in this emerging field? Catalysts are indispensable across industries, disciplines, and R&D laboratories and our latest summary identifies the new opportunities, challenges, and innovations. Across industries, from energy to agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and more, this may be a critical component to improving sustainability metrics.