Technology

October 22, 2021

Wanhua Updates

Wanhua Chemical deploys new high-end chemical materials

Echemi 2021-10-22

01 Strategic cooperation with Hikvision

On October 13, Wanhua Chemical Group Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation agreement at the global headquarters of Wanhua Chemical Group in Yantai.

Based on their respective deep accumulations in the industrial and technological fields, the two parties have reached strategic cooperation in the following two aspects:

Research and development of new high-end chemical materials

Wanhua Chemical will continue to cooperate with Hikvision on the structural material upgrade of hardware products.

02 Chemical safety production control

Hikvision regards chemical companies as providing AI-based production assistance, safety control and perception solutions, and using technological integration and innovation to help Wanhua Chemical’s digital and intelligent transformation.

Under the dual carbon goal, China’s chemical industry is in the process of replenishing and strengthening the chain. As a new chemical material company operating globally, Wanhua Chemical can rely on continuous innovation of core technology, industrialized equipment and efficient operation mode to promote the research and development and mass production of new high-end chemical materials, and help the development of high-tech products in structural materials. upgrade.

Green development and artificial intelligence have become important engines for the high-quality development of the chemical industry. The chemical industry is accelerating digitalization and continuously promoting innovation. The Internet of Things + AI has become an important bridge to realize digital transformation. As a builder of full-stack spectrum IoT capabilities and a partner in enterprise digital transformation, Hikvision can help users in the chemical industry realize scene IoT and intelligent perception, reduce the risk of enterprise accidents, and improve the company’s daily security and production safety early warning capabilities .


The cooperation agreement signed by the two parties this time can be said to be very strategic.


02 Jointly with Hillhouse to invest in Shanghai Leju

On October 12, Shanghai Leju Technology Co., Ltd. announced the completion of its B round of over 100 million yuan financing. This round of financing was jointly invested by Wanhua Chemical and Hillhouse Ventures. Leju had previously received Series A financing from Sinopec and Shangnan Group. It is understood that the funds raised by Le Orange in this round of financing will be mainly used for system algorithm research and development, packaging material technology investment and reverse logistics system construction.

Leju was established in 2018 and positioned as a supply chain infrastructure service company based on smart packaging and smart logistics. Leo Orange has products such as Yelopack Le Orange Yunguo, Yelotour Le Orange Yuntu, Yelolife Le Orange Newborn, and Yeloant Le Orange Carbon Ant. Its packaging products are recycled in accordance with national standards, aiming to promote the recycling of plastic products. Protect the natural environment to the limit and save resources.

In the context of the “first year of carbon neutrality” in 2021, Leju provides solutions to help customers achieve carbon neutrality goals and propose effective solutions from the three aspects of intelligence, renewable raw materials, and carbon reduction.

I believe that Wanhua Chemical’s investment in Leju will also help us realize our mission of chemistry and a better life.


03 Expansion of 250,000 tons/year TDI project

On September 23, the Fuzhou Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment announced the environmental impact assessment document for Wanhua Chemical (Fujian) Co., Ltd.’s expansion of the 250,000 tons/year TDI project (replacement of the existing 100,000 tons and approved 150,000 tons of TDI capacity).


Introduction to the basic situation of the project

1. Project name: Wanhua Chemical (Fujian) Co., Ltd. expands 250,000 tons/year TDI project;
2. Construction unit: Wanhua Chemical (Fujian) Co., Ltd.;
3. Construction nature: reconstruction;
4. Project construction site: Jiangyin Gangcheng Economic Zone, Fuzhou;
5. Project investment: The total investment of the project is 1927.3779 million yuan;
6. Floor area: The total land area is 62,313 square meters;
7. Estimated construction period: 2 years.

Introduction to the use of TDI

Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) is the basic raw material of polyurethane, which is mainly used to produce flexible polyurethane foam (soft foam, sponge), polyurethane elastomer, coating, adhesive, sealant and elastic polyether. Among them, flexible polyurethane foam, as the traditional consumption field of TDI, is widely used in furniture mattresses, carpets, internal components of vehicles, trains and airplanes, toys, etc., accounting for more than 70% of the total TDI consumption. Different raw materials used and changes in formula can be made into soft, semi-rigid polyurethane foam and other varieties.

In less than a month, Wanhua Chemical can be said to be constantly moving in different fields. Regardless of whether it is cooperation, investment or expansion, I believe Wanhua Chemical is a comprehensive consideration of integrating its own development into the development trend of the times.

https://www.echemi.com/cms/379899.html

September 27, 2021

Online Advice

Strategies to Help Protect Your Digital Footprint

You can’t erase your digital footprint, but you can take steps to safeguard it.

You’ve likely heard of the term “digital footprint,” but you may not fully understand what that means or how to optimize your online presence for greater privacy and security. In our increasingly digital world, it’s important to be knowledgeable about these matters, so let’s review the basics.

What’s a Digital Footprint?

A digital footprint is an accumulation of all your activities online. Think about the routine things you do each day—crafting a social media post, making a purchase, activating an account, registering for a newsletter, checking the weather, completing a survey or sharing an article.

All these actions leave a digital trail, which can include your IP address as well as any personal details of your life that you’ve shared online. (An IP address is a unique series of numbers that’s assigned to each internet-connected device. It may reveal the city, area code or ZIP code from where you’re connecting, but not your name, mailing address or phone number.) This data can be tracked and analyzed by marketers, credit card issuers, advertisers, law enforcement agencies and other organizations to learn about your habits and create a customized profile.

In short, your digital footprint is similar to the footprints you leave when walking on a fresh blanket of snow. Others will be able to see where you’ve been. And while snow footprints will eventually fade away, digital footprints can be permanent.

Digital Footprints: The Good and Bad

Digital footprints can actually be beneficial. They can enhance the time you spend online by providing a more personalized, convenient experience—such as remembering your last food order or enabling you to receive targeted, exclusive offers that align with your interests.

You can even help create a “positive” footprint of yourself for others you might want to impress online—such as your boss, future employers or college admissions officers—by shaping your image through the messages, photos and other information you provide on social media or other online platforms.

But your digital footprint can also lead to a variety of negatives, such as unwanted solicitations, decreased privacy and identity theft. Cybercriminals can use your footprint to unleash more targeted, effective social engineering schemes, such as phishing attacks, and other scams against you. 
Related articles

Safeguarding Your Digital Footprint

Fortunately, you can limit the potentially damaging impacts of your digital footprint by taking the following measures:

Search for yourself: Doing an online search about yourself may seem a bit vain. But it’s a good way to see the type of information that’s readily available about you. Try this with multiple search engines and explore the first several pages of results.

Be prepared to be surprised, though, by what you uncover. It can be alarming. If you find sensitive data you don’t want revealed—or if you come across information that’s incorrect, misleading or inappropriate—contact the site administrator to request removal of the material.

Set alerts: After performing your search, consider setting up alerts to more easily keep track of your online mentions in the future. With an alert, you’ll receive a notification whenever your name appears online.

To help eliminate results from other individuals with your same name, you can add keywords to your search that are associated with you (such as your hometown).

Use tighter privacy settings: Service providers for social media, e-commerce, email, search engines, web browsers, online conferencing and more often give their users the ability to manage the privacy settings for their accounts.

Using more restrictive settings can reduce your digital footprint and give you greater peace of mind. The National Cybersecurity Alliance provides direct links to manage privacy settings for many popular sites.

Just be aware, though, that increasing your security may interfere with some of the usability of the site or lead to other drawbacks. For example, deleting your search history can make it more inconvenient when doing future searches. Or blocking pop-up ads may prevent you from seeing ads or offers you’d normally welcome. Although the benefit of greater privacy is often worth these trade-offs, you should understand the implications of your actions before making any changes.

Also, when managing your privacy settings, take a couple of minutes to review the company’s privacy policy. It’s important to understand how an organization collects, stores, protects and utilizes your personal data. If you feel a policy is too intrusive, it’s best to just move along. Your privacy and security are too valuable.

Be cautious with social media: Even if you adopt stronger privacy settings, you still should be judicious about what you choose to reveal about yourself online. For example, use caution when responding to social media surveys as they can reveal personal information.

Or, you might want to proudly post a picture of your new grandchild on a social media account. But remember that anything you share online can be re-shared by friends, family members and colleagues without your consent.

And once that happens, it’s out of your control who will end up seeing your information.

Restrict mobile app permissions: Whenever you grant a mobile app access to your photos, location, camera, contacts and other information, it makes your data available to the app owner. So, be selective before giving an app permission to all the types of information it requests. Keep in mind that many apps will still work even if all permissions aren’t granted.

Limit your online accounts: Having a lot of online accounts leads to a bigger footprint. However, you can quickly reduce your footprint by deleting or deactivating accounts you no longer need. For example, is it necessary to have several email accounts? And what about that account you opened three years ago with an online retailer that you haven’t used since?

Be selective about opening new accounts, too. If you have the choice of checking out as a guest with a retailer instead of creating an account, it’s better to use that option unless you plan to be a frequent customer.

Use a password manager: A password manager is a software tool that securely creates, encrypts and stores unique, complex passwords for you. And since you should have a different password for each account, this saves you from the headache of remembering all those passwords.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (sometimes called Two-Factor Authentication) as well for any accounts where it’s offered.

Think before linking accounts: Some service providers allow you to register with their business by using an account you have with another company. For instance, maybe they’ll invite you to sign in through your Facebook or Google account.

Doing so grants these other organizations access to even more information about your online activities, which means you’ll need to decide if the convenience is worth the potential added exposure.

September 27, 2021

Online Advice

Strategies to Help Protect Your Digital Footprint

You can’t erase your digital footprint, but you can take steps to safeguard it.

You’ve likely heard of the term “digital footprint,” but you may not fully understand what that means or how to optimize your online presence for greater privacy and security. In our increasingly digital world, it’s important to be knowledgeable about these matters, so let’s review the basics.

What’s a Digital Footprint?

A digital footprint is an accumulation of all your activities online. Think about the routine things you do each day—crafting a social media post, making a purchase, activating an account, registering for a newsletter, checking the weather, completing a survey or sharing an article.

All these actions leave a digital trail, which can include your IP address as well as any personal details of your life that you’ve shared online. (An IP address is a unique series of numbers that’s assigned to each internet-connected device. It may reveal the city, area code or ZIP code from where you’re connecting, but not your name, mailing address or phone number.) This data can be tracked and analyzed by marketers, credit card issuers, advertisers, law enforcement agencies and other organizations to learn about your habits and create a customized profile.

In short, your digital footprint is similar to the footprints you leave when walking on a fresh blanket of snow. Others will be able to see where you’ve been. And while snow footprints will eventually fade away, digital footprints can be permanent.

Digital Footprints: The Good and Bad

Digital footprints can actually be beneficial. They can enhance the time you spend online by providing a more personalized, convenient experience—such as remembering your last food order or enabling you to receive targeted, exclusive offers that align with your interests.

You can even help create a “positive” footprint of yourself for others you might want to impress online—such as your boss, future employers or college admissions officers—by shaping your image through the messages, photos and other information you provide on social media or other online platforms.

But your digital footprint can also lead to a variety of negatives, such as unwanted solicitations, decreased privacy and identity theft. Cybercriminals can use your footprint to unleash more targeted, effective social engineering schemes, such as phishing attacks, and other scams against you. 
Related articles

Safeguarding Your Digital Footprint

Fortunately, you can limit the potentially damaging impacts of your digital footprint by taking the following measures:

Search for yourself: Doing an online search about yourself may seem a bit vain. But it’s a good way to see the type of information that’s readily available about you. Try this with multiple search engines and explore the first several pages of results.

Be prepared to be surprised, though, by what you uncover. It can be alarming. If you find sensitive data you don’t want revealed—or if you come across information that’s incorrect, misleading or inappropriate—contact the site administrator to request removal of the material.

Set alerts: After performing your search, consider setting up alerts to more easily keep track of your online mentions in the future. With an alert, you’ll receive a notification whenever your name appears online.

To help eliminate results from other individuals with your same name, you can add keywords to your search that are associated with you (such as your hometown).

Use tighter privacy settings: Service providers for social media, e-commerce, email, search engines, web browsers, online conferencing and more often give their users the ability to manage the privacy settings for their accounts.

Using more restrictive settings can reduce your digital footprint and give you greater peace of mind. The National Cybersecurity Alliance provides direct links to manage privacy settings for many popular sites.

Just be aware, though, that increasing your security may interfere with some of the usability of the site or lead to other drawbacks. For example, deleting your search history can make it more inconvenient when doing future searches. Or blocking pop-up ads may prevent you from seeing ads or offers you’d normally welcome. Although the benefit of greater privacy is often worth these trade-offs, you should understand the implications of your actions before making any changes.

Also, when managing your privacy settings, take a couple of minutes to review the company’s privacy policy. It’s important to understand how an organization collects, stores, protects and utilizes your personal data. If you feel a policy is too intrusive, it’s best to just move along. Your privacy and security are too valuable.

Be cautious with social media: Even if you adopt stronger privacy settings, you still should be judicious about what you choose to reveal about yourself online. For example, use caution when responding to social media surveys as they can reveal personal information.

Or, you might want to proudly post a picture of your new grandchild on a social media account. But remember that anything you share online can be re-shared by friends, family members and colleagues without your consent.

And once that happens, it’s out of your control who will end up seeing your information.

Restrict mobile app permissions: Whenever you grant a mobile app access to your photos, location, camera, contacts and other information, it makes your data available to the app owner. So, be selective before giving an app permission to all the types of information it requests. Keep in mind that many apps will still work even if all permissions aren’t granted.

Limit your online accounts: Having a lot of online accounts leads to a bigger footprint. However, you can quickly reduce your footprint by deleting or deactivating accounts you no longer need. For example, is it necessary to have several email accounts? And what about that account you opened three years ago with an online retailer that you haven’t used since?

Be selective about opening new accounts, too. If you have the choice of checking out as a guest with a retailer instead of creating an account, it’s better to use that option unless you plan to be a frequent customer.

Use a password manager: A password manager is a software tool that securely creates, encrypts and stores unique, complex passwords for you. And since you should have a different password for each account, this saves you from the headache of remembering all those passwords.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (sometimes called Two-Factor Authentication) as well for any accounts where it’s offered.

Think before linking accounts: Some service providers allow you to register with their business by using an account you have with another company. For instance, maybe they’ll invite you to sign in through your Facebook or Google account.

Doing so grants these other organizations access to even more information about your online activities, which means you’ll need to decide if the convenience is worth the potential added exposure.

September 23, 2021

Dow Mattress Recycling Plant

Mattress recycling now a reality with startup of new RENUVA™ plant

RENUVA™ Polyol ready for use in flexible foam applications to deliver greater sustainability offerings for bedding industry

HORGEN, SWITZERLAND – September 22, 2021 – Dow Polyurethanes, a business division of Dow (NYSE: DOW), and Orrion Chemicals Orgaform together with Eco-mobilier, H&S Anlagentechnik and The Vita Group have inaugurated a pioneering mattress recycling plant as part of the RENUVA™ program.

Old mattresses made of polyurethane foam will now be recovered, dismantled and chemically recycled to create a new polyol, which is a key starting material to produce polyurethane. This RENUVA™ polyol is designed for various applications including mattresses. Today’s unveiling is a major step forward for the recovery and recycling of polyurethane foam and a significant advance for closing the loop for end-of-life mattresses. At full capacity the plant will process up to 200,000 mattresses per year to tackle the growing mattress waste problem.

“We are immensely proud to have unveiled this plant. By doing so we are answering the question of what can be done with recycled polyurethane foam. It is part of Dow’s strong commitment to delivering solutions that help close the loop and protect our environment,” commented Marie Buy, Sustainability Leader EMEAI, Dow Polyurethanes, “As RENUVA™ now shifts focus to the production phase and the first foam made with the new polyol, our Dow Polyurethane sustainability journey continues. We are actively exploring future possibilities for recycled material and potential applications. It is really a new beginning.”

The RENUVA™ mattress recycling plant is the result of strong collaboration between Dow and key players from across the mattress lifecycle: chemical innovator Orrion Chemicals Orgaform, expert mattress collector Eco-Mobilier, turnkey solutions provider H&S Anlagentechnik, and foam manufacturer The Vita Group.

“This really is a first for our company and for France. We have a longstanding commitment to creating more sustainable solutions and have long recognized the need for industry to part of the solution,” commented Christian Siest, President, Orrion Chemicals Orgaform, “Our plant uses a chemical recycling process in which the polyurethane foam is decomposed and converted into a novel single product. The great thing about this is versatility; we can process foam from any mattress and the RENUVA™ polyol recipe itself can be tailored for different applications.”

“Our ambition is to ensure the quality of the materials collected and delivery to RENUVA so that we keep to the promise of a closed loop”, stated Dominique Mignon, President of Eco-Mobilier.

As previously announced, flexible polyurethane foam solutions provider The Vita Group will use the RENUVA™ polyol to create its award-winning Orbis flexible foam, providing a more sustainable offering to the bedding market.
“Consumer attitudes have changed significantly, and people are becoming a lot more focused on making sustainable choices. We have already seen strong interest from customers across Europe for Orbis foam and interest in the RENUVA™ technology, providing exciting opportunities for our product lines,” commented Mark Lewis, Operations and Projects Director at The Vita Group, “For over 50 years, Vita has recycled or re-bonded pre-consumer foam trim into material suitable for a range of products such as underlays for flooring. Our collaboration with Dow allows us to take our sustainability vision to the next level and we are extremely proud and excited to play our part in driving this ground-breaking innovation forward.”

Discover more on September 29
Dow and RENUVA™ partners will host a special virtual event “Closing the Loop for Mattresses: A New Beginning with RENUVA™” on 29 September to reflect on the future of the program and share a close look at what this plant means for the bedding industry.

Register for free to learn more: engage.dow.com/RENUVAWebinar29Sept21

https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/news/press-releases/mattress-recycling-now-a-reality-with-startup-of-new-renuva-plant.html

September 23, 2021

Dow Mattress Recycling Plant

Mattress recycling now a reality with startup of new RENUVA™ plant

RENUVA™ Polyol ready for use in flexible foam applications to deliver greater sustainability offerings for bedding industry

HORGEN, SWITZERLAND – September 22, 2021 – Dow Polyurethanes, a business division of Dow (NYSE: DOW), and Orrion Chemicals Orgaform together with Eco-mobilier, H&S Anlagentechnik and The Vita Group have inaugurated a pioneering mattress recycling plant as part of the RENUVA™ program.

Old mattresses made of polyurethane foam will now be recovered, dismantled and chemically recycled to create a new polyol, which is a key starting material to produce polyurethane. This RENUVA™ polyol is designed for various applications including mattresses. Today’s unveiling is a major step forward for the recovery and recycling of polyurethane foam and a significant advance for closing the loop for end-of-life mattresses. At full capacity the plant will process up to 200,000 mattresses per year to tackle the growing mattress waste problem.

“We are immensely proud to have unveiled this plant. By doing so we are answering the question of what can be done with recycled polyurethane foam. It is part of Dow’s strong commitment to delivering solutions that help close the loop and protect our environment,” commented Marie Buy, Sustainability Leader EMEAI, Dow Polyurethanes, “As RENUVA™ now shifts focus to the production phase and the first foam made with the new polyol, our Dow Polyurethane sustainability journey continues. We are actively exploring future possibilities for recycled material and potential applications. It is really a new beginning.”

The RENUVA™ mattress recycling plant is the result of strong collaboration between Dow and key players from across the mattress lifecycle: chemical innovator Orrion Chemicals Orgaform, expert mattress collector Eco-Mobilier, turnkey solutions provider H&S Anlagentechnik, and foam manufacturer The Vita Group.

“This really is a first for our company and for France. We have a longstanding commitment to creating more sustainable solutions and have long recognized the need for industry to part of the solution,” commented Christian Siest, President, Orrion Chemicals Orgaform, “Our plant uses a chemical recycling process in which the polyurethane foam is decomposed and converted into a novel single product. The great thing about this is versatility; we can process foam from any mattress and the RENUVA™ polyol recipe itself can be tailored for different applications.”

“Our ambition is to ensure the quality of the materials collected and delivery to RENUVA so that we keep to the promise of a closed loop”, stated Dominique Mignon, President of Eco-Mobilier.

As previously announced, flexible polyurethane foam solutions provider The Vita Group will use the RENUVA™ polyol to create its award-winning Orbis flexible foam, providing a more sustainable offering to the bedding market.
“Consumer attitudes have changed significantly, and people are becoming a lot more focused on making sustainable choices. We have already seen strong interest from customers across Europe for Orbis foam and interest in the RENUVA™ technology, providing exciting opportunities for our product lines,” commented Mark Lewis, Operations and Projects Director at The Vita Group, “For over 50 years, Vita has recycled or re-bonded pre-consumer foam trim into material suitable for a range of products such as underlays for flooring. Our collaboration with Dow allows us to take our sustainability vision to the next level and we are extremely proud and excited to play our part in driving this ground-breaking innovation forward.”

Discover more on September 29
Dow and RENUVA™ partners will host a special virtual event “Closing the Loop for Mattresses: A New Beginning with RENUVA™” on 29 September to reflect on the future of the program and share a close look at what this plant means for the bedding industry.

Register for free to learn more: engage.dow.com/RENUVAWebinar29Sept21

https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/news/press-releases/mattress-recycling-now-a-reality-with-startup-of-new-renuva-plant.html