Nylon Bows as Exterior Building Material Du Pont supplying shutters in limited eastern market Nylon is moving into the exterior building materials market. The first entry—nylon shutters—is being offered by Du Pont. The shutter may be only the forerunner of other building materials based on nylon. Such shutters could be made either by molding or vacuum forming. Du Pont's shutters are finished with an acrylic topcoat and a compatible undercoat. They are being supplied in black, white, and dark green to building supply dealers and lumberyards; other colors are available from Du Pont by special order. The shutters are being sold in a regional market extending from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia, Pa. Du Pont, through the building products division of its Central Development Department, plans eventually to broaden the marketing area. Nylon shutters are rot-proof and difficult to distinguish from painted woodwork, Du Pont says. Retail cost of the shutters is from $13 a pair for 14- by 39-inch shutters to $27 for a pair of 18- by 80-inch shutters. By comparison, unpainted high-quality pine shutters (14 by 39 inches) are about $6.00 a pair. Other nylon manufacturers are puzzled by Du Pont's offering of the shutters. Nylon, they point out, is regarded as an engineering thermoplastic. At a relatively high cost per pound (87V2 cents), it is usually limited to applications where other thermoplastics cannot do the job. "The only one I can see benefiting from a nylon shutter," one producer comments, "is the nylon manufacturer." One reason for such a critical view is that Du Pont's shutters must still be painted occasionally because the nylon is degraded by ultraviolet light. They are thus not totally maintenance free. Du Pont says it would have painted the shutters regardless to achieve a woodlike appearance. Maintenance-free shutters made of vinyl and vinyl-coated acrylonitrilebutadiene-styrene are available at an equal or lower cost, the companies point out. A vinyl-coated ABS shutter, for example, is being test marketed by the 16
C&EN
DEC. 27,
1965
TGS Starts Up New Frasch Sulfur Mine at Old Site Texas Gulf Sulphur's new Frasch sulfur mining operation at Gulf, Tex. (C&EN, March 1, page 9), has started production. Gulf was the site of TGS' first sulfur mining effort; about 12 million long tons of sulfur were produced there between 1919 and 1932. It is the fifth sulfur producing mine in Texas. The facility is on the Intracoastal Canal, and the molten sulfur is being shipped in barges.
Pax Panels division of Paxton Co., Kansas City, Mo. The vinyl—Du Pont's polyvinyl fluoride film called Tedlar—is laminated to vacuumformed ABS supplied by U.S. Rubber. The shutters are only available in 15inch widths. Prices range from $8.00 per pair for 39-inch-long shutters to $14 per pair for 81-inch-long shutters. Bird & Son, Inc., of East Walpole, Mass., has commercially available a complete line of building products based on B. F. Goodrich Chemical's Geon polyvinyl chlorides. The cost of a 14- by 39-inch pigmented vinyl shutter is about the same as that of nylon—$13 per pair. Colors are gray, white, and green; no maintenance is required, the company says. Another thermoplastic—impact polystyrene—is being tested for possible use as a decorative shutter. None of the companies venture a guess as to the size of the market. But with an estimated 10 to 15 pairs of shutters per house, the replacement market alone is sizable. But Du Pont may be looking at other exterior building products made from nylon. One such large potential market could be window and door frames. Another 125 million poundper-year market where nylon might be competitive is in lightweight panel facings, which .are used over masonry.
Montecatini, Edison Propose Merger The world's fourth largest chemical firm will take form in Italy if the stockholders of Montecatini and Societa Edison approve the companies' decision to merge. The resulting chemical giant would have annual sales of more than $1.5 billion, would employ about 130,000 people, and would account for 15% of the chemical capacity of the European Economic Community. Only Du Pont and Union Carbide in the U.S. and Imperial Chemical Industries in England can boast higher sales than the prospective new company. "A firm of such dimensions is necessary for survival in the EEC," -according to an Edison executive. Disclosure of the merger caught western Europe's chemical industry completely by surprise. Negotiations were such a well-kept secret that even high ranking executives of the two firms didn't realize what was taking place. "It fell on us like a bomb," is one executive's reaction to the announcement. Italians generally seem receptive to the proposed merger. The Italian government has given its unofficial blessing to the venture, the press has
