Charlotte, NC - June 03, 2008
Dow Coating Solutions, a market-facing business of The Dow Chemical Company (Dow), is showcasing a range of new technology solutions, innovation themes and business resources to formulators and other industry leaders attending the 2008 American Coating Show in Charlotte, N.C. this week.
“Since first introducing Dow Coating Solutions earlier this year, we have been working with market leaders to implement new ideas and explore distinct solutions to industry-wide issues,” George Hamilton, president of Dow Coating Solutions, said. “We will help make it easier for our customers to do business with Dow while driving new cooperative innovation and chemistry-enabled answers that help meet growing coatings market needs.”
Making it Easier to Innovate
In support of these goals, Dow Coating Solutions is showcasing new chemistries and innovation themes in four key areas at the American Coatings Show. They are:
- Reducing environmental impact.
- Reducing application and lifecycle costs.
- Improving environmental durability (e.g., corrosion resistance, weatherability).
- Enabling “smart” coatings.
“We chose to focus much of our R&D efforts in these four areas based on perceived needs and ongoing conversations with customers across all coatings industry segments,” Wendy Hoenig, Vice President R&D for Dow Coating Solutions, explained. “We have already made significant progress in each area. At the American Coatings Show, we will be sharing those successes and working with leaders from across the industry to help them continue to innovate and develop new solutions based on Dow Coating Solutions technology.”
Specific product and technology announcements from Dow Coating Solutions at the show include:
- ECOSURF™ SA Surfactants, a new generation of patented, biodegradable, nonionic surfactants that meet most environmental and handling safety standards world-wide, while offering excellent performance and economics.
- New biocides for low- or no-VOC formulations.
- Full support and suggested formulations for sustainable paints and coatings that meet regulatory and environmental standards for coatings worldwide.
- RENUVA™ Renewable Resource Technology, a new process that enables the use of natural oil-based polyols for products with high levels of renewable content as well as excellent coatings performance.
- BLUEWAVE™ Technology, a new process that allows for the production of waterborne dispersions from multiple families of chemistry.
- New UCAR™ Flex Technology, which enables a new family of products, currently available in China, that provides superior dirt pickup resistance in elastomeric coatings.
- D.E.R.™ 6508 solid epoxy resins, used in coatings for pipelines operating at high temperatures (up to 140 degrees Celsius) to guard against corrosion.
- Glyercine-to-Epichlorohydrin (GTE) technology, which will allow Dow to produce epichlorohydrin from renewable feedstocks.
- FORTEGRA™ Epoxy Tougheners, low viscosity materials for use in amine, DICY, anhydride and phenolic cured epoxy systems that minimize the need for additives such as carboxyl terminated butadiene-acrylonitrile and aliphatic modifiers.
- New high throughput research techniques that will help enable faster commercialization of new solutions.
Making it Easier to do Business
Additionally, Dow Coating Solutions is making several announcements related to new growth initiatives that will make it easier for customers to do business with Dow. These include:
- A new sales and customer support infrastructure designed to work more closely with formulators and industry leaders in developing and marketing new solutions that are not necessarily dependent upon traditional product chemistries.
- New coatings-focused R&D labs in Shanghai, The People’s Republic of China, and Midland, Michigan, as well as multiple coatings application centers located at existing Dow facilities worldwide.
- The recent opening of a new phenolic glycol ethers production plant in Freeport, Texas.
- Multiple new production processes and chemistries designed to help formulators more easily meet environmental regulations and industry needs worldwide.
“The efforts we announced at the American Coatings Show are just the beginning,” Hamilton said. “We are significantly changing the way we do business and how we support new customer innovation. We look forward to continually working with industry leaders to advance the science of coatings worldwide.”
To learn more, visit www.dowcoatingsolutions.com or booth # 1153 at The American Coatings Show.
About Dow Coating Solutions
Dow Coating Solutions is a market-facing business unit of The Dow Chemical Company that focuses on the needs of coatings formulators and the coatings market. The business relies on many of Dow’s valuable assets, including multiple product chemistries, a highly-trained coatings R&D staff and an unparalleled global supply infrastructure, to offer product-agnostic solutions to coatings formulators worldwide. For additional information, visit www.dowcoatingsolutions.com.
About Dow
For Editorial Information:
Kate Nigro
The Dow Chemical Company
+1.989.638.9629
Mike Crisp
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