DuPont CEO: Corn-based polymer biggest thing since nylon

[cyberpj]

DuPont CEO: Corn-based polymer biggest thing since nylon
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press
Posted Friday, June 8, 2007 at 8:21 am

LOUDON, Tenn. — Railcars filled with a new bioengineered corn-based polymer are already pulling out of chemical giant DuPont Co.’s $100 million joint-venture factory with multinational agri-processor Tate & Lyle PLC. Next stop could be the carpet in your living room.

While other companies are working on several fronts to use more renewable resources, DuPont and Tate & Lyle consider themselves several steps ahead. They tout their plant about 35 miles south of Knoxville as “visible evidence that an economy based on renewable ingredients is possible.”

E. coli bacteria modified by DuPont scientists is used to convert corn sugar from an adjacent Tate & Lyle ethanol plant using a fermentation process, much like making beer.

The result is a clear liquid compound that can replace and improve upon petroleum-based ingredients in a quickly expanding range of products, including fabrics, cosmetics, liquid detergents, boat hulls, ski boots and runway de-icers.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070608/BUSINESS/70608020

[cyberpj]

1. DuPont opens joint Tenn. biochemical plant

DuPont opens joint Tenn. biochemical plant
Corn-based chemical can replace petroleum as ingredient
By LULADEY B. TADESSE, The News Journal
June 9, 2007

DuPont Co. and a partner celebrated Friday the grand opening of a $100 million Tennessee plant that converts corn sugar into an ingredient used to make bio-based products, including carpets and hand lotion.

The plant, which began production in November, expects to make 100 million pounds of corn sugar-based propanediol, a key ingredient used to make specialty plastics such as Sorona carpet fibers.

Demand for the propanediol has grown so much, DuPont and partner Tate & Lyle already are considering building additional plants, possibly overseas. The Tennessee facility, in Loudon, has shipped 85 rail cars of product since November.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, a keynote speaker at the grand opening, said the plant is "on the leading edge of a biotechnology revolution."

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070609/BUSINESS/706090330/1003