BRIEF REFLECTIONS ON THE 4th INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT IN CHEMICAL SCIENCES

The 4th Industrial Revolution is well described as a digital revolution in which the integration between the physical, biological and digital fields can prompt unprecedented results in terms of research, innovation and products. Our brief discussion is built upon chemistry as a fundamental science in this context: it emerges with contributions for advanced digital technologies along with clean energy, sustainable processes and circular economy for the industry 4.0. Since the previous industrial revolutions brought uncertainty in the environment-chemistry binomial it is urgent achieving a systemic industrial innovation in order to promote a technological, energetic and social transition toward a sustainable future, especially in the alarming context of climate change. Despite the Brazilian chemical industry represents the largest in the Southern hemisphere it has few integrated chemical supply chains which represents a bottleneck toward advances in the manufacturing base. Within both academy and industry, the groundbreaking shift in the chemical sector can enable opportunities to chemists build a better future. At the same time, a paradigm shift is leading us to new methods, models and, consequently, disruption in the way of producing and sharing knowledge. Finally, some skills were proposed for chemists within the framework of the 4.0 era.