News of the Week exhibited declining results. For in stance, Air Products & Chemicals re ported a 23% increase in earnings to $60.6 million on an 11% sales jump to $725 m i l l i o n . The firm was helped by good performance in each of its business segments, especially chemicals. It notes that polyurethane product lines performed par ticularly well because of stronger ex port markets. Rohm & Haas posted a particular ly large earnings increase, up 72% to $36.8 million. Sales also rose, but by a much smaller 9%, to $678 million. The company notes, however, that the earnings growth reflects more a poor 1989 quarter than a strong 1990 performance. Nevertheless, key fac tors in t h e i m p r o v e m e n t w e r e strong European currencies—which helped boost overseas results—and the absence of significant operating problems at major plants. William Storck
Monsanto, Exxon form joint elastomer venture Monsanto and Exxon have merged their thermoplastic elastomer busi nesses to create a new company with 450 employees and annual worldwide sales of $100 million, based on 1990 sales of the two groups, making it " t h e industry leader in TPEs." The new firm, Advanced Elas tomer Systems, will have its own production, marketing, and research operations independent of its par ents. It plans to invest between 8 and 9% of sales in R&D. Gary E. O'Connor, president of AES and formerly director of Monsanto's Elastomers Business Group, says the company will establish R&D operations near Brussels to supplement an R&D group in Ak ron, Ohio. The R&D staff of 30 will increase 50% by early 1992, he notes. AES will have manufacturing capac ity in Pensacola, Fla.; Wadsworth, Ohio; Newport, South Wales (U.K.); Yokkaichi, Japan; and San Jose dos Campos, Brazil. The venture will aim to replace natural and synthetic rubber in what O'Connor calls the engineer ing elastomers market. The partner 8
January 28, 1991 C&EN
Conventionally, C 6 and C 7 normal alkanes undergo cyclization in processing with platinum catalysts incorporated in the channels and cages of zeolites. Activity and selectivity are h i g h , but the catalyst is extremely sensitive to sulfur poisoning. Hence, considerable pretreatment or desulfurization of the alkane feedstock is usually required prior to catalysis. Derouane says discovery of the high activity of platinum on a nonporous support points to some simplified technology in hydrocarbon re-forming. The magnesia-based catalyst's high selectivity and activity, he says, were totally unexpected. Derouane isn't sure of the reason for the high activity. Because there are no channels or pores in the magnesia support, he rules out the influence of spatial constraints on the stabilization of a cyclic intermediate. It may just be, he says, that modification of the electronic and atomic structure in the platinum clusters is such that aromatization is optimized. Another possibility is that the metal-catalyzed reaction is favored over unwanted isomerization or hydrogenolysis, which occur at acid sites. If this is true, then the magnesia acts as an inert carrier for the platinum clusters. The only other possibility that Derouane suggests is a bifunctional mechanism, wherein the basic sites on the support supplement the catalytic sites of the clusters. Work is now under way to better A novel aromatization catalyst for n- ascertain the structure of the platialkanes developed by a group of num clusters and to determine the chemists in Belgium could lead to a extent of the catalyst's resistance, if new approach for hydrocarbon re any, to sulfur. forming. Unlike the zeolite catalysts Derouane doesn't think there is conventionally used, the new cata now any great market for alkane arlyst is nonporous, but it exhibits omatization because of environmencomparable activity and selectivity in tal objections to benzene, the chief converting π-hexane to benzene. product of the aromatization. HowThe catalyst consists of platinum ever, he believes a potential market clusters, about 2 nm in diameter, lies in integrating this reaction into supported on a basic, high-surface- a broader processing scheme, in area magnesium oxide stabilized by which benzene constitutes a feedaluminum. Its development was car stock for alkylation or other proried out by a group headed by Eric cesses. There is industrial interest G. Derouane in the catalysis labora in the new catalyst, which is pattory of the department of chemistry ented in Belgium, and the univerat Facultés Universitaires Notre- sity has an unidentified industrial Dame de la Paix in Namur [Nature, partner. Joseph Haggin 349, 313 (1991)].
ship will pool Exxon's expertise in olefin-based raw materials and poly mer science with Monsanto's mar keting, technical, and manufactur ing expertise in elastomeric alloys. O'Connor estimates world market demand for engineering elastomers is currently 2.3 million metric tons per year. The market grew at dou ble-digit rates in the past decade, and this promises to continue, he adds. Applications include automo tive markets (seals, gaskets, insula tion strips, for example), construc tion (gasketing, expansion joints, roofing membranes), medical (sy ringe plunger tips, intravenous kits), food and beverages (tubing, hoses), electrical (wire and cable jacketing), appliances (gaskets and performance parts), and business machines (key pads, rollers). AES will market Santoprene, Geolast, Vyram, TPR, and Dytron XL elastomers derived from Monsanto, and Vistaflex and Trefsin from Exx on. Competing materials include not only natural rubber, but also engi neering elastomers such as neoprene (produced by Bayer and Du Pont), and nitrile rubber (produced by Bayer, Uniroyal, and others). Both Monsanto and Exxon will re tain their other, more-rigid plastic materials businesses. Marc Reisch
Novel aromatization catalyst developed
