Solutia has developed Therminol VLT in response to the pharmaceutical industry's emerging need for a fluid that can operate at extremely low temperatures. In addition to the capability of operating at temperatures as low as -115 C (-175 F), Therminol VLT offers pharmaceutical manufacturers precise temperature control, increased product yield and reduced production time.

"We were looking for a low-temperature fluid with the capability of going below -100 C, in order to scale-up our current processes," said Robert Petersen, pilot plant manager at Cambridge Major.

Cambridge Major Laboratories are a service-based chemistry outsourcing partner to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

At the other extreme Therminol VLT can operate at temperatures up to 175 C (350 F) and allows a single fluid to be used in many general purpose processes where both cooling and heating are required. The properties of Therminol VLT allow the same equipment to be used over its wide range of operation.

As well as the pharmaceutical industry Therminol VLT can also be used in a wide variety of industries, such as the chiral chemistry process, fine chemicals and specialty chemicals.