Explaining what you do for a living at a party is something we all find difficult. Especially if you work in the chemistry field. And yet it can be done. Through video animations, complex material can be clearly conveyed to people without a chemistry background. Haimo Tonnear, marketing communications manager at AkzoNobel Polymer Chemistry, shares his experiences.

How video animations help make chemistry understandable

You know how it goes: "Hey, what do you actually do?" "Well, I work in the chemical industry for a company called AkzoNobel." "That sounds interesting! What kind of products do you make?" "We produce organic peroxides." "What?" "Organic peroxides." "Okay, uh …"

"Polymers, better known as plastics and rubber, are used in many things around us. Just think of shampoo bottles, shoe soles, gutters, cables, and many parts of cars and household items. Without organic peroxides, a large portion of these products would not exist."

"Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. But what do these peroxides do then?"

And then it gets tricky…

Complex subject

The above comes from a blog by Tonnear. We asked him to tell us more about it.

It is not easy to explain chemistry to someone who has no chemistry background. Tonnear raises the question of whether this is due to the fact that it is such a complex subject or because people are simply not used to explaining what chemistry is to outsiders. That is why they at AkzoNobel Polymer Chemistry started an experiment to see if they could attract a broader audience to polymer chemistry by using video animations.

Give people literal insight

Over the past year, AkzoNobel, together with C4Real, has worked on several video animations to clearly convey complex material. In their ongoing learning process, the partners have come to interesting insights. According to Tonnear, video animation is the ideal way to explain complex matters clearly: "The visuals evoke a different feeling than textbooks do. You really get taken along in the process. By making it visible, people truly gain insight into how the process unfolds. You can present it very simply, making it easy to understand. A good example is a video animation we made about how polymers are produced and another animation where you can see how to improve the properties. We also make this concrete and show how, for example, polyethylene or PVC is made, but also how to ensure that the sole of a running shoe retains its shape."

The intangible becomes clear

"The animations were originally developed from a marketing and sales perspective to give customers insight into how our products work and the added value they provide in the customer's process in a modern and fresh way. But it soon became clear that there was more potential in this approach. The videos are now used for both internal employees and students without a chemistry background. Within the organization, there arose a need to use the animations in a more educational way. Therefore, two adapted animations have been created to explain the processes in a bit more detail.

These steps also illustrate the learning process within AkzoNobel and the growing interest in what the company does,” said Tonnear: “I am a chemical technologist myself, but for many people, chemistry is quite intangible. You can’t see it. For us as a business unit, it is therefore useful to explain to people without a chemistry background what polymers actually are and how they are made. Colleagues find the way C4Real has visualized this very appealing, and 'chemistry laypersons' now get a good idea of what we are actually doing. We also use these animations in our internal HR process to introduce non-chemical candidates to chemistry and our specific products in a low-threshold manner. In this way, we are actually making chemistry more attractive."

Zooming in on a molecular level

Visualizing chemical processes remains a challenge, Tonnear explains: "You cannot film chemistry. That’s why, together with C4Real, we decided it would be good to zoom in at the molecular level to show how it works. This is not new; it has been done for a long time. But the way it is now visualized in 3D makes the animation much more appealing, clearer, and engaging. We transition from actual video footage to 3D animation and back again. This way, the visible and invisible worlds overlap. We have thought very carefully about what we wanted to visualize for which target audience and how we could do that best."

Ongoing learning process

The question that many readers will be left with after this article is how they can get started themselves. Tonnear indicates that it is important not to strive for perfection here: "For us, it is still an ongoing learning process. Visualizing things becomes easier over time. The nice thing is that there is increasing interest within AkzoNobel and externally, thanks to this approach. The power of video animation makes complex processes understandable for a wide audience. Therefore, we also want to share our enthusiasm with industry colleagues. This method works for different target groups. Everyone in the industry can benefit from it."