MUNDOMATERIAL

The 11th of April Solvay announced its intention to buy Rhodia for €3 billion. This is the last announcement in a long list of acquisitions in the chemical industry in a year that is breaking records. The number of acquisitions is motivated by a market recovering from the economic crisis and that has cash again after 3 years of strong readjustment measures. Solvay buys Rhodia Specialty polymers of Solvay. Source: Solvay The main products of Brussels based Solvay are sodium carbonate, hydrogen peroxide and specialty polymers. It employs 16,800 people in over 40 countries and in 2010 its consolidated sales were €7.1 billion. The sale of its pharma business for €4.5 billion to Abbott was finalised. This sale focused the rest of the business in the chemicals sector and it has probably facilitated Rhodia’s acquisition. Rhodia employs 14,000 people worldwide and in 2010 its sales amounted to €5.23 billion. Its internal structure is a bit complicated, with 5 clusters and 11 business... 
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DuPont and Denso corporation have collaborated to launch an automotive part made with a renewably sourced polymer. The novelty here is that the part is a radiator end tank that is going to be exposed to harsh underhood conditions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me a very important breakthrough for bioplastics, going from disposable products to pure high performance. Of course, DuPont is not an ordinary plastic producer and Denso is not just a client. DuPont/Denso bioplastic radiator The part: automotive radiator end-tank The material: nylon The grade that made it: DuPont™ Zytel® 610 DuPont Renewably Sourced Materials The launch of a bioplastic underhood car part is well framed within DuPont’s strategy towards better environmental practices, it is certainly not an isolated movement. Through an alliance with Tate & Lyle, of which I have already written here, DuPont can now commercialised several plastics with renewable content, as well as polyols. DuPont... 
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1,3-Propanediol, also known as PDO, is an organic compound used as a monomer in a variety of applications. At the moment PDO can be obtained from both petrochemical and renewable sources. This gives me the chance to analyse how both routes lead to the same chemical, but not the same product. Some of the main applications for PDO are listed below: As a monomer in the production of polymers As heat transfer fluid, coolant and solvant As an additive in thermoplastic polyurethanes, to improve thermal, hydrolitic and dimensional stability As an additive in polyester systems, to improve flexibility of coatings formulationsas a chain extender in polyurethane formulations The largest producer of PDO is Shell, which manufactures it in its US plant in Geismar. Shell began PDO production in 2000 and it now has a plant capacity of 73 kt per year. The proprietary Shell method for producing PDO is the hydroformylation reaction of ethylene oxide (EO) with syngas to make 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde (HPA)... 
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Thermoplastic elastomers, or TPEs, deserve a post of their own, as they are an interesting polymeric family that is not very well known. You can find a good introduction in Wikipedia. If you are not familiar with Wikipedia, give it a go, you’ll be surprise how thorough it can be considering is free. Just be careful to check the facts elsewhere afterwards, as anyone can edit an entry and some are almost like corporative pages. Coming back to the initial issue, TPEs have rubber and thermoplastic properties. This combination of properties is achieved by blends of elastomers and thermoplastics or by using copolymers. Usually elastomers are thermosets and the crosslinking is by a covalent created during vulcanisation. TPEs crosslinked thanks to weaker bonds or by bonds being created in only one of TPE’s phases. In the previous table you can see types of TPEs commercialised, some companies that produced them and their trade name. Links are at the bottom of the post. Arkema and DuPont... 
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