Big Data in the Chemicals Sector

Big Data is relatively new, started about a decade ago benefiting from the data explosion in different sectors, driven by the low-cost; hardware, storage, software tools, beside the massive proliferation of computing technology in everything we do, which led to generating huge amounts of data of all types. In the chemicals sector, there is also huge volumes of data accumulated over the years but a small percentage of it is being used. Big Data is at its infancy stage in the chemicals sector, though started to rise up in the past few years. In this paper we discuss the specific needs, features and challenges at this sector and how Big Data can help addressing some of these challenges. We also discuss Big Data in the entire context of automation and digitalisation at the chemicals sector. Benefits that can be obtained from applying Big Data in this sector are also reviewed.