News of the Week obstacles, OTA notes, including time-consuming legal actions and disagreements within the federal bu reaucracy. Moreover, under the Reagan Administration, the Office of Management & Budget closely reviews proposed regulations, add ing to delays. OMB also has public ly questioned agency assumptions in identifying and assessing the risk of carcinogens. In light of the "substantial gaps in regulatory activity," OTA sug gests that Congress may wish to mandate that agencies regulate chemicals indicated as carcinogens by the NCI/NTP bioassays and the Annual Report on Carcinogens. Or at least agencies might be required to respond publicly, regardless of whether they intend to regulate. The report was requested by the House Government Operations Com mittee and its Subcommittee on Hu man Resources & Intergovernmental Relations. Copies (stock number 052-003-01080-1) are available for $11 from the U.S. Covernment Print ing Office, Superintendent of Doc uments, Washington, D.C. 20402. Richard Seltzer, Washington
Mobay acquires Denka Chemical Mobay says it has reached an agree ment to acquire Houston-based Denka Chemical. Denka was once a subsidiary of the Japanese chemical concern, Denki Kagaku Kogyo, but is now employee-owned and has annual sales of $100 million. It em ploys about 400 workers. No finan cial details of the agreement were available. When it completes the acquisi tion, Mobay, a subsidiary of West Germany's Bayer A.G., will have ex panded its U.S. foam cushion busi ness to include domestic produc tion for polychloroprene rubber, and will have added production for maleic anhydride and its derivatives. It will also own the engineering firm Scientific Design, currently a Denka subsidiary. Before 1982, Scientific Design (then known as Halcon SD) had been an independent process licens ing/engineering firm and catalyst β
November 16, 1987 C&EN
producer. The company developed and held patents on a number of processes for production of key chemicals such as ethylene glycol, glycol ethers, ethylene oxide, cyclohexane, styrene, ethylbenzene, and cumene, as well as for maleic anhydride and for fumaric acid. In 1982, Texas Eastern acquired Halcon SD. Denka acquired the company last year. ~ Bayer is already a major Europe an producer of polychloroprene rub ber sold under the Bayprene trade mark, says a Mobay spokesman. However, the acquisition of Denka will give Mobay a foothold in the U.S. market. According to market sources, Du Pont, the only other domestic U.S. producer, has 87% of
U.S. annual capacity of 454.2 mil lion lb. Du Pont's product is known as Neoprene. With the acquisition of Denka's maleic anhydride operations, Mobay enters, with a hold on 14% of capac ity, a business where derivatives ma lic and fumaric acids principally serve the foodstuffs and soft-drink industry. Monsanto is the dominant player here with the world's largest maleic anhydride plant in Pensacola, Fla., which can produce 47% of total domestic capacity of 360 mil lion lb. Maleic anhydride is also a component in the polyester struc tural component resins that Mobay produces for automotive and boat markets, its spokesman pointed out. Marc Reisch, New York
Chemistry history center receives large grant The Center for History of Chemis try in Philadelphia has received a $2 million challenge grant from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foun dation. As a result of the grant, the center has been renamed the Ar nold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry. The center must now raise $2 mil lion to match the Beckman Founda tion "challenge." The money will form an endowment that will be used primarily to consolidate the center's offices and activities, begin new programs, and plan for even tual relocation in a new building.
Beckman: $2 million
grant
Established in 1982, the center is a joint project of the American Chemical Society, the American In stitute of Chemical Engineers, and the University of Pennsylvania, where the center is located. Accord ing to center director Arnold Thackray, the center's aim is to discover and disseminate information about historical resources, and to encour age research, scholarship, and pop ular writing in the history of the chemical sciences and industries. Arnold O. Beckman, who with his wife established the Beckman Foundation, is the founder of Beck man Instruments, which in 1982 be came part of Philadelphia-based SmithKline Beckman Corp. In recent years he has become a well-known philanthropist, sharing wealth ac cumulated in part from the instru ment company he founded in 1935 after inventing the now-classic elec tronic pH meter. That and other instruments he developed are cred ited with revolutionizing the prac tice of chemistry in the past half century. "With his customary vision, Dr. Beckman is in the vanguard of a broad-based movement to increase the public understanding of sci ence," Thackray said. "An under standing of the past will help us meet the needs and opportunities of the future." Ernest Carpenter, Washington
