Dow & Davy form PTA Technology sales agreement

13 Aug '08

3 min read

Dow Technology Licensing, business units of The Dow Chemical Company, an affiliate of Dow Italia S.r.l., and Davy Process Technology Limited have reached a cooperation agreement for the engineering, R&D, marketing and sales of Dow's PTA Process Technology. PTA production is integral to the manufacture of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), a performance polymer used in fiber, film, packaging containers, engineering resins and binder resins.

“Dow will continue to apply its material science and chemical expertise to enable process
improvements in our proprietary PTA Process Technology, while Davy will provide the focused expertise required for scale-up, as well as enhanced engineering capabilities,” said Dr. Molly Peifang Zhang, DTL vice president.

According to Zhang, the new agreement builds on a successful, 30-year working relationship with Davy in licensing LP OxoSM Process Technology, the world's leading process technology for producing oxo alcohols.

“Our collaboration with Davy on PTA Technology opens the door to continually improve the process technologies leveraging the engineering resources from Davy and ensures that we offer the most competitive technology to our customers,” said Zhang. “It puts us in the best position to meet the needs of our customers as they expand to meet significant growth in PET demand over the next five to seven years.”

Advances in PTA Process Technology figured largely in the growing popularity of PET during the 1990s as a replacement for glass, PVC and aluminum with blow-molded bottles. Dow recently achieved another incremental jump in process efficiency by replacing energy intensive centrifuges with a more reliable and efficient single rotary pressure filter, effectively condensing a traditionally two-step filtration process into one.

“The recent technology advances made by the Dow PTA team was an important factor in our decision to collaborate with Dow and commit additional resources to further revitalize this technology,” said Dr. David Tomlinson, president of Davy Process Technology. “We plan to expand our PTA operations and look forward to taking this step with Dow.”

Dow's PTA Technology is licensed throughout the world and currently is used to produce approximately 5,000 KTA annually. “I'm confident the agreement will improve the level of service we give our customers and stimulate technology improvements to meet market demands,” said Zhang.

Davy Process Technology has a global business in petrochemicals technology development and technology licensing. The company has headquarters in London, and its Technology Centre is in Stockton-on-Tees. It owns a range of proprietary process technologies such as Methanol, Gas Conversion Technologies, Butanediol, Natural Detergent Alcohols, Oxo Alcohols, Industrial Dow and Davy to Form Marketing and Sales Agreement around PTA Technology Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or an affiliated company of Dow SM Servicemark of The Dow Chemical Company ("Dow") or an affiliated company of Dow Amines, Ethyl Acetate and Propylene Glycol.

Davy Process Technology

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