Weekly News Roundup

My draft box is piling up with pending posts from the Infocast Biobased Chemicals Summit (I had an interesting conversation with Bioformix CEO Adam Malofsky which I'll put out soon) as well as from my attendance of the annual Jefferies Clean Technologies meeting last week where several renewable and big chemical companies update investors of their green strategies for the year.

Tomorrow, I'll be co-moderating the CM&E Green Chemistry Panel and it will be interesting to get views from Martek Biosciences, Novomer and Houlihan Lokey. For now, let's start with the very much delayed Weekly News Roundup:

Nippon Air uses DuPont's bio-PDO deicer

All Nippon Airways (ANA) has placed a significant order of DFSustain deicer made with DuPont's Susterra bio-propanediol (PDO). DFsustain has the potential to use up to 40% less energy in manufacturing than more traditional fluids. In performance tests, the fluid was effective at temperatures as low as –40ºC, the company said.

Eastman expands non-phthalate output

Eastman Chemical has completed debottlenecking of its manufacturing capacity for Eastman 168™ non-phthalate plasticizer at its Kingsport, Tenn., USA, facility. The approximate 10% increase in capacity came on stream at the end of 2010. Demand is said to be rising for the plasticizer in toys, childcare articles, medical devices and a wide range of other consumer applications worldwide.

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