In The News
A new spin on vacuum degassing of polymer melts
Gneuss Kunststofftechnik GmbH (Bad Oeynhausen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-541) has developed a patented technology that significantly increases the surface exchange of molten polymers during vacuum degassing — a technique used to remove residual water and monomers during polymer processing. Compared with conventional…
Butyl rubber
ExxonMobil Chemical (Houston, Tex.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-543) has commercialized a new process for making butyl rubber at its Notre Dame de Gravenchon plant in France. The company declines to give details on the process, but says it is more energy-efficient than the…
Putting ionic liquids and CO2 to work in upgrading low-temperature heat sources
BASF Corp. (Florham Park, N.J.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-536) and CogniTek Management Systems, Inc. (Northfield, Ill.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-537) have signed a cooperative agreement to study the combined use of supercritical (SC) CO2 and ionic liquids (Ils) as a potentially efficient way to utilize low-temperature…
Ceramic ferrules
Blasch Precision Ceramics (Albany, N.Y.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-548) has commercialized one-piece hex-head ferrules made of 99.6% alumina for applications in steam-methane reformers. The high-purity alumina is becoming popular as an alternative to high-grade metal alloys because it is virtually immune to chemical…
CO2 capture
BP Alternative Energy (Sunbury, (U.K.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-544) and Powerspan Corp. (Portsmouth, N.H.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-545) are collaborating to develop and commercialize Powerspan’s carbon dioxide capture technology, called ECO2. The agreement covers financial and technical support for pilot demonstration and commercial scaleup activities, including…
Bending polymers imitate the beauty of nature
Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Racah Institute of Physics (Israel; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-539) have succeeded in programming polymer sheets to bend and wrinkle by themselves into prescribed structures, such as domes, saddles and sombrero shapes (photo). Their work, described in…
Major M&As
Last month, Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc. (Columbus, Ohio; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-546) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Huntsman Corp. (Salt Lake City, Utah) in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $10.6 billion, including the assumption of debt. Huntsman has terminated its previous…
Sugar-to-PE
Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-548) and Crystalsev (São Paulo, Brazil; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-549) are forming a joint venture in Brazil to design and build the first integrated facility of its scale in the world for making polyethylene (PE) from sugar cane.…
Solar polysilicon
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-552) plans to build the first commercial-scale plant for the production of granular polysilicon for the solar industry at its Berghausen, Germany, site. The 650-m.t./yr facility is expected to start up by the end of…
Printed electronics
Solvay Solexis, a subsidiary of Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-554), and Thin Film Electronics ASA (Oslo, Norway) are cooperating to develop materials for the production of printed electronics devices.The aim of the joint-development program is to optimize ferroelectric-polymer materials to…