ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE Advertiser retains sole responsibility for the content of this article

AI-driven database connects chemical

sustainability to profitability
A unique research platform is helping chemical companies navigate their way into the
circular economy. Just don’t call it a scholarly search engine.

Produced by
Dimensions' easy-to-navigate web of data and allows users to access an immense range of sources and new
connections. Credit: YAY Media AS/Alamy

“Sustainability doesn’t work as a bolt on,” says Joseph Lowery, director of circularity at Carpenter,
a leading global manufacturer of polyurethane foams. “You can’t make only one piece of your
product fit into the circular economy: you have to incorporate these principles from the
beginning.” It’s Lowery’s job to help shift his firm from traditional linear economy to a circular
model of reducing and reusing materials — eliminating production of goods which ultimately end
up in a landfill.

In the face of increasing restrictions on single-use plastics and other elements of the ‘throwaway’
society, embracing sustainable manufacturing offers opportunities for chemical firms to innovate
toward new markets like bio-based food packing. Making the move toward greener practices,
however, comes with challenges for an industry accustomed to petrochemical feedstocks and low-
cost energy.
Lowery is part of a growing cadre of researchers turning to artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to
answer vital questions about sustainability. Chief among these questions: can a firm leverage
existing strengths and products towards new targets in the green chemical market? And if so, do
they have the in-house expertise needed to handle unconventional technologies such as microbial
fermentation?

“Organizations aren’t sitting back and waiting for things to happen,” says Suze Kundu, director of
researcher and community engagement for Digital Science, of which Dimensions, a massive AI-
powered database, is a part. “They’re acting strategically to pre-empt a range of scenarios and
mandates that they must work towards, and we can help them on that journey.”

As the world’s largest linked research database — with access to scholarly literature, grant
funding, patents, clinical trials, and policy documents — Dimensions has a distinct approach to
filtering, categorizing, and tracking scientific data that is bringing real-world success to
researchers dedicated to sustainability. Critically, the software features built-in tools to initiate
collaborations that can help businesses decouple growth from increasing carbonization.

From linear to circular

Since 2018, Lowery has been on the frontlines of the burgeoning sustainability industry. Originally
working with an internal incubator devising techniques to upcycle end-of-life products and by-
products within chemical giant DuPont’s business structure, last year he joined Carpenter, a
company committed to green practices since the 1960s, when the firm started to fabricate carpet
cushion from recycled materials.

The manufacture of polyurethane foam relies

on mixtures of polyol and isocyanate
components, as well as blowing agents to
increase porosity. To limit the hazards of
some of these chemicals and to reduce
intense energy and water requirements,
Lowery is investigating changes to four
different quadrants of the circular economy
— inputs, manufacturing, product use, and
Chemical companies are increasingly on the lookout end-of-life — using a collection of computer-
for solutions to their sustainability problems. Credit: based and experimental tools.
petrmalinak/Shutterstock

“When you're incorporating sustainability into

a legacy product like polyurethanes, it’s much
more difficult — you’re not just constrained by existing assets; you’re also constrained by
conventional thinking,” he says.

Lowery notes that a current focus of the polyurethane industry lies in sourcing renewable inputs,
such as substituting starches for isocyanates or deriving polyols from vegetable oils. But
incorporating plant-derived substances requires additional research to gauge economic viability.

“The biggest challenge we face is finding cost-effective solutions,” he says. “Can we increase the
quality of the product without intensifying the carbon footprint? If a consumer is turning over a
product every 15 years instead of 10, that’s a very effective knob to turn.”

Carpenter collects and re-uses millions of pounds of foam, polystyrene, and polyesters from its
production range each year. Apart from developing strategies for chemical and mechanical
treatments of recycled materials, the firm faces logistical obstacles soon to be shared with many
manufacturers: how do you get a product such as a bulky mattress back from a consumer?

Lowery explains that ‘hub and spoke’ supply chain models, where a central location delivers
materials efficiently around a region, may not work in reverse. He also notes that this quadrant of
the circular economy is where the public will feel the immediate impact of sustainability choices.

“You’ll care about the type of foam in your bed when you have to get rid of it,” says Lowery.
“Massachusetts just passed a law banning mattresses from the regular waste stream, and more
places are disallowing construction and demolition waste towards landfills.”

The semantics of search

Adopting a circular economy that takes as many goods as possible out of landfill requires buy-in
from both consumers and manufacturers. Kundu finds parallels in this approach to experiences
with customers using Dimensions software to advance sustainability research.
“As these companies move from linearity to circularity, they become more aware of their
stakeholders and what they’re responsible for,” she says. “They are working in collaboration, not in
silos anymore.”

Kundu cites the common example of a single-use plastics manufacturer looking to switch to
biodegradable materials to better target sustainability markets, and how Dimensions could serve
here. A typical keyword-based search of the academic literature requires highly specialized terms
— perhaps focusing on pre-researched details like corn starch-based plastics — to deliver
meaningful results.

Dimensions, however, tries to understand what a user is looking for with a general ‘biodegradable
plastic bag’ query through semantic search technology, an approach that combines natural
language processing with machine learning to analyse relations between words and concepts. The
AI-powered search function takes place across an ‘ontology tree’: a 40-million concept hierarchical
classification system used to categorize and tag publications according to their subject matter.

“With the ontology tree, you can view search terms from different perspectives,” says Mihai
Gherghe, a product solutions consultant with Dimensions. “There could be a new material indexed
within the recyclable materials ontology, or a manufacturing method you weren’t aware of before,
and that’s really powerful.”

Thanks to agreements with multiple publishers, Dimensions covers more publications — 134
million in fact — than any scholarly search engine. The chemical registry is one of the most
comprehensive compound databases available, and the semantic search delivers exceptionally
relevant results thanks to the software’s ability to index the full text of about 70% of publications.
This easy-to-navigate web of data allows users to access an immense range of sources and new
connections.

For industries looking to predict future

sustainability trends, Dimensions offers
forward-looking sources, including a grant
database with 6 million sources and up-to-
the-minute online attention metrics. The
platform’s comprehensive patent database
With its distinct approach to filtering, categorizing, and searches in multiple languages and covers
tracking scientific data, Dimensions helps dedicated disciplines in social sciences and humanities,
scientists keep on top of the latest sustainability
in addition to physical sciences and
research. Credit: winui/Shutterstock
engineering. Users can follow research
throughout its lifecycle, from initial funding,
to eventual patents and clinical studies.

Deep connections

Lowery says that Dimensions’ search interface initially reminded him of “old-school Yahoo! from
the 1990s” with the ability to search by category, instead of just keywords. He soon found that the
platform’s advanced filtering capabilities made it significantly easier to keep on top of specific
developments in his field. Researchers and chemical firms don’t have time to search through
thousands of academic papers. With Dimensions, Lowery explains how he can narrow the results
to just ones about manufacturing, or how they’re categorized according to the United Nations
sustainable development goals.

“I can see the researchers involved and decide if I want to just read their papers, or start a
conversation,” he adds. Lowery believes this is a much more effective way to target to a common
goal when it comes to working with academics.

Gherghe notes that the mismatch between academic intellectual property and the chemical
industry’s need for favourable economics is diminishing in an era of increased partnership.

“For example, collaborations between the fast-moving consumer goods industries and packaging
producers are obvious ones needed to comply with regulations and sustainability goals,” says
Gherghe. “Dimensions offers insights into these relationships both from the functionality it offers,
and by being able to track trends over time.”

Dashboard to success

Another innovative aspect of the Dimensions platform is its ‘dashboard’, a customizable interface
meant to help users keep on top of the latest updates to their specific research interests.
Customers can select widgets that monitor changes in funding or highlight key opinion leaders in
a field.

“It's not just a static report — people can dive into the data and interrogate it, see how the trends
change over months or years,” says Kundu. “They’re the subject experts, and we’re providing them
with actionable insights in an easy-to-digest manner.”

Both Kundu and Gherghe stress that Dimensions is continually being improved with new research
sources and tools, such as bespoke dashboards and APIs, thanks to customer involvement in the
development process. At a time where sustainability targets may shift course suddenly, companies
with the tools to remain profitable will have the advantage.

“I can't even call Dimensions a scholarly search engine because it's so much more,” says Kundu.
“Our users need a seamless tool, so they don’t have to grab a short list of publications from one
platform, and patents or grants from another. We can bring it all together.”

Although a recent Dimensions adopter, Lowery has been quick to pick up on the benefits of the
dashboard, using it to monitor real-time changes to specific patent searches. Most of all, he
appreciates that it’s not an AI that aims to make business decisions for him. Instead, the platform
exposes him to new options, while he remains in strategic control.

“I’m hoping we see a lot of new startups that can take traditional products and manufacture them
in a new way,” says Lowery. “There’s a lot of trash out there and as people figure out how to re-
use that, it’s going to be a big driver for the entire plastics industry.”

To learn more about how the Dimensions platform can redefine how sustainability research takes
place, visit.

Nature Research Custom