Materia & QAPCO sign MoU on next-gen material development

02 Jun '14

4 min read

QAPCO uses focused partnerships with Qatar’s most prominent universities such as Texas A&M University at Qatar, as the launching point for its research activities. Most recently, QAPCO supported the establishment of an endowed chair position at Texas A&M at Qatar for Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering with Nobel Prize winning chemist Professor Robert H. Grubbs, Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, as adjunct professor and inaugural chair.

“It is exciting to be part of a collaboration involving Materia, QAPCO, and Texas A&M at Qatar to develop the next generation of materials and products from Qatar-based feedstocks. This program will allow fundamental discoveries to be rapidly converted into new commercial products,” stated Professor Grubbs.

About Materia

Materia was founded in 1998 to commercialize the Grubbs Catalyst technology, which enables chemical compounds to be synthesized with greater efficiency, under less stringent reaction conditions, and with reduced byproducts and hazardous waste. Metathesis has been accepted as an emerging chemical technology platform and has been broadly adopted by the pharmaceutical, chemical, and polymer industries. As stated by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences when awarding the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, “metathesis is an example of how important basic science has been applied for the benefit of man, society, and the environment.”

About QAPCO

QAPCO was established in 1974 and is a joint venture between Industries Qatar (80%) and Total Petrochemicals (20%). QAPCO is one of the largest producers of low density polyethylene (LDPE) in the region. LDPE is considered as the most widely used type of plastic, providing innovative and practical applications such as food packaging, cables, agricultural films or toys and playing a key role in the development of green building solutions. LDPE enriches the daily lives of millions of people around the planet. QAPCO is involved in a number of joint ventures that include QATOFIN, QVC, and QPPC, thereby producing various petrochemical products, making QAPCO a regional petrochemical powerhouse.

Materia

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