INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
L’Oreal sued over hair protection knockoff Start-up firm Olaplex charges theft of its chemistry intellectual property Celebrities Taylor Swift and Jennifer Lawrence went blonde using it, and now L’Oreal is charged with stealing it: the formula for Olaplex’s Bond Multiplier, a product that protects hair during bleaching and color treatments. The bad blood emerged late last year in a suit filed in federal court for the Central District of California. In it, start-up firm Olaplex charged L’Oreal with violating a patent covering hair protection ingredients
agents from breaking disulfide bonds in the hair. However, the lawsuit charges L’Oreal with violating a patent issued to the two scientists for an alternative hair protector: maleic acid. The two patented the second ingredient as a way to protect Olaplex against a competitor that might try to substitute a less-expensive ingredient for the dimaleate. New hair treatments such as Bond Multiplier and three products from O O L’Oreal—Professionnel Smartbond, + –O + O– H N Redken pH-Bonder, and Matrix O O NH 3 3 OH HO Bond Ultim8—are a boon to consumers who “want to be able to Bis(aminopropyl)diglycol dimaleate O O change their color often yet suffer discovered by a University of California, none of the damaging side effects frequent Santa Barbara (UCSB), chemist and a forcoloring usually entails, such as breakage mer student. or dryness,” says product development Olaplex is seeking an injunction against consultant Ameann DeJohn. “Up until reL’Oreal and unspecified damages. In recently, there just hasn’t been anything like sponse, L’Oreal says “we strongly oppose this available at all.” the merit of these claims and the validity According to the Olaplex suit, polymer of the patent, and L’Oreal will defend this chemists Craig J. Hawker and Eric Pressly position vigorously.” developed the chemistry for Bond MultipliThe original active ingredient the two er in Pressly’s garage. Hawker is a professor scientists discovered was bis-aminopropyl in UCSB’s department of chemistry and diglycol dimaleate, a molecule with maleate biochemistry and winner of the 2013 ACS ions on either end. According to Olaplex, Award in Polymer Chemistry. ACS is the it works by keeping bleaching and coloring publisher of C&EN. Pressly, who currently
Olaplex’s Pressly (left) in his garage with Hawker. The two scientists discovered a new way to protect hair from the damaging effects of bleaching. works for Olaplex, got his Ph.D. in materials science from UCSB and was a member of Hawker’s research group. Olaplex introduced Bond Multiplier to stylists in early 2014. Later that year, a L’Oreal-owned firm started to distribute it. Sales were so strong that L’Oreal tried, unsuccessfully, in early 2015 to hire Hawker and Pressly. It then offered to buy Olaplex, the suit alleges. By May, talks had advanced and L’Oreal had signed a confidentiality agreement giving it access to Olaplex’s proprietary information. But by September negotiations fell apart. Shortly thereafter, the suit charges, L’Oreal created three “knock offs that it hoped would mimic Olaplex’s success.”—MARC REISCH
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GREENHOUSE GASES
CREDIT: OLAPLEX
Gulf Coast methanol plant gets $2 billion loan A new firm called Lake Charles Methanol has received a $2 billion conditional loan commitment from the Department of Energy for a facility that will produce methanol by gasifying petroleum coke, a waste product from oil refining. The plant will capture and purify by-product carbon dioxide for use in enhanced oil recovery. Pending completion of financing, the $3.8 billion plant will be built in Lake Charles, La. and supplied with coke from nearby refiners. In addition to methanol and CO2 it will produce hydrogen, sulfuric acid, argon, krypton, and xenon. Although the plant will use existing technologies for its gasification and gas separation and purification units, it will be the
first in the U.S. to make methanol from petroleum coke. In the U.S., methanol is most commonly made from natural gas; plants in China rely on coal gasification. The chemical industry has long known that petroleum coke could be used as a methanol feedstock. In 2007, Eastman Chemical announced plans for two Gulf Coast projects to do so, but they were canceled after the advent of hydraulic fracturing made natural gas routes more cost-competitive. The Lake Charles plant is also the first facility to obtain a DOE loan guarantee under a program designed for large-scale fossil energy projects. “It would be the world’s first methanol facility utilizing carbon capture technology and would become the
world’s largest industrial manufacturing carbon capture facility,” says Mark A. McCall, executive director of the DOE’s loan programs office. Compared to other methanol plants, Lake Charles Methanol will emit 36% fewer greenhouse gases, DOE says. Overall, it will capture 77% of its carbon emissions, sequestering more than 4 million metric tons of carbon each year. The plant will use “advanced ultra-clean” gasification technology from General Electric. Although Lake Charles Methanol hasn’t stated what technology it will use to capture CO2, a similar project evaluated by DOE in 2012 included a solvent process to remove and purify CO2 and other gases.—MELODY BOMGARDNER JANUARY 2, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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