INDUSTRY THIS WEEK IN BRIEF
N e w construction General Aniline & Film has brought on stream a long-chain alkyl vinyl ether unit at its Calvert City, Ky.f high-pressure acetylene chemicals plant. The unit makes decyl, dodecyl, hexadecyl, and octodecyl vinyl ethers. The long-chain alkyl vinyl ethers are used in the plastics, textile, adhesives, synthetic organic, and other industries. Union Carbide has started construction on an 8 million pound-per-year dichlorodiphenylsulfone facility at Marietta, Ohio. The multimillion-dollar facility is scheduled to be completed by mid-1968. Dichlorodiphenylsulfone is used to make polysulfone, a strong, heat-resistant thermoplastic.
oratory bottles. Disposable plastic labware includes plain and screw cap culture tubes, petri dishes, bacteriological and serological pipets. Plastics used to make the new labware are low-density polyethylene, linear polyethylene, polypropylene, polycarbonate, and polystyrene.
Corporate Hazleton Laboratories, Inc., Falls Church, Va., has merged into TRW, Inc., Cleveland (C&EN, Nov. 6, 1967, page 34). Hazleton will retain its present management and will operate as a TRW subsidiary.
International Aerotherm Corp. plans to build a 15,000-sq.-ft. facility to house its administrative offices, analytical services division, aerospace systems division, and experimental services division at Mountain View, Calif. The facility is scheduled for completion by mid-1968. Aerotherm conducts research and hardware development in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and high-temperature chemistry. Diamond Shamrock Chemical Co., a unit of Diamond Shamrock Corp., plans to begin producing mercury at its Terlingua, Tex., mine. It has purchased a 100 ton-perday ore processing plant from Atlas Minerals Co., Avenal, Calif. Initial capacity will be 2000 flasks of mercury per year, and production is to begin by June. Diamond Shamrock Chemical is also proceeding in a joint venture with Ydrametals Corp., New York City, in evaluating a deposit of high-grade cinnabar about 200 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska. Monsanto will consolidate most of its tire and rubber chemical facilities in a 41,000-sq.-ft. marketing and research center it is building in Akron, Ohio. The facility, when completed next December, will house personnel and equipment of its rubber chemicals research laboratory now located in Nitro, W.Va., and at other locations in Akron. Rubber marketing specialists of its organic chemicals division and hydrocarbons and polymers division will move to the new location as will Monsanto's district sales office now in Cleveland, its inorganic chemicals sales group, and the textiles division's tire and automotive market group. Austin Co., Cleveland, will design and construct the building under the direction of Monsanto's central engineering department. Owens-Illinois has moved into plastic scientific and laboratory ware by starting production at a new multimilliondollar plant at Toledo, Ohio. The plastic ware will be made and marketed by the Kimble products section of its consumer and technical products division. The re-usable plastic labware will include graduated cylinders, beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, separatory funnels, centrifuge tubes, connecting tubes, chemical and powder funnels, and lab24 C&EN MARCH 11, 1968
Lurex, Ltd., has been formed in Brazil to make metallic yarns and other yarns. Lurex, N.V., of the Netherlands, is the principal stockholder of the new company. Lurex will market the metallic yarns, which are used in decorative textile applications such as knitwear, woven apparel fabrics, draperies, and upholstery cloths, in Brazil and elsewhere in South America. Lurex, N.V., is a joint venture of Dow Chemical and West Germany's Badische Anilin-& Soda-Fabrik, A.G. Farbwerke Hoechst, A.G., will build a Trevira polyester filament plant near Limavady in northwest Ireland. Scheduled to come on stream in 1970, the plant will have an initial capacity of 4800 metric tons (about 10.6 million pounds) annually. Cost will be about $15 million. Hoechst, which has Trevira plants in West Germany, U.S., and Austria and others under construction in South Africa and Chile, has been importing Trevira into the U.K. for about a year. Farbenfabriken Bayer, A.G.'s group sales increased to $1.58 billion in 1967—7.2% more than in 1966. Sales of Bayer, A.G., alone were up 3.6% amounting to $1.089 billion. Exports rose 7.6% to $589 million while domestic sales dropped 0.6% to $500 million. Profit before taxes dropped from $133.9 million in 1966 to $131 million in 1967 while profit after taxes rose to $66.25 million from 1966's $63.87 million. Nippon Chemical, formed by five Mitsubishi group companies, will build a 1000 metric-ton-per-day ammonia plant at Onahama, north of Tokyo. The ammonia unit and an associated 800 ton-per-day urea unit, both singletrain, will go on stream late next year. Mitsubishi holds 2 0 % of the new company and two fertilizer-making subsidiaries hold 3 0 % each. Mitsubishi Chemical's own 1000 ton-per-day ammonia unit at Kurosake will be completed by mid-1969. Kashima Ammonia, a 50-50 venture of Mitsubishi Petrochemical and Nitto Chemical (another firm in the Mitsubishi fold), was formed last month to build and operate a 1000 ton-per-day unit at Kashima.
