@theaudiotweak, have patents been filed on this product? BTW, patents can be invalidated by showing the disclosed information does not fully support the claims. I hold 6 patents for chemical processes/composition of matter. I know how this stuff works, and have pretty much seen it all in terms of the games inventors play. The practice of which you speak was once common, but it is no longer.
It would seem to me that the owner's survivors must have information that could be a starting point for reverse engineering. Purchase orders and other financial records for instance, would reveal much.
This can't be that hard. It isn't easy for someone outside the chemical industry to procure chemical raw materials for obvious reasons. Unless the owner had a background in chemistry and analytical equipment supporting quality control, one would expect a rather simple mixing of products, or perhaps a repackaging of something that is already commercially available.
Usually permits are required for this sort of thing. A Material Safety Data Sheet should probably have been available to customers describing the chemical composition. How did the proprietor dispose of chemical waste?
There is just too much that is hard to explain about this whole thing.
