Dow and Sasol both used this year’s SEPAWA Congress in Berlin on 25-27 October to launch surfactants that claim superior ecological profiles. In both cases, the products are based on collaboration with smaller, technology-based partners.

Dow developed EcoSense 2470 Surfactant with carbon recycling company LanzaTech Global, which recovers waste carbon then transforms into ethanol and on to surfactant ingredients. The company said that this is differentiated other biosurfactants and biobased surfactants in two ways: *

Dow has outlined what it described as “a series of targeted actions aligned to its previously stated plan to achieve $1 billion in cost savings in 2023”. This is divided into $500 million each of ‘structural improvements’ and operating expense reductions. The measures include:

* About 2,000 job cuts to reduce labour and services costs

* Shutting down select assets, while further evaluating the asset base, particularly in Europe

* Increasing productivity via end-to-end process improvements

Dow has agreed a strategic collaboration with CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society. This will leverage a CAS Custom Services system based on specialised technologies, data science, and the CAS Content Collection “to empower efficiencies in Dow’s research processes that improves efficiency and productivity”, the company said.

Dow has announced plans to expand its alkoxylation capacity in the US and Europe in 2024 and 2025. The investments are backed by supply agreements with customers and are being made to meet 10-15%/year growth in end markets including home and personal care, industrial and institutional cleaning, pharmaceuticals and crop protection.

Ten major global chemical sector companies have agreed with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to establish what they called “a breakthrough, pre-competitive development platform to accelerate net-zero climate technologies”. They are BASF, Dow, DSM, Solvay, Clariant, Covestro, Mitsubishi Chemical, Air Liquide, Sabic and Sibur.

Dow has announced what it described as “a series of incremental, high-return capacity expansions to support growing demand across key end-markets, all of which value sustainable solutions and continue to grow faster than GDP”. Most relate in full or in part to specialities.

Dow’s headquarters site at Midland, Michigan, was hit by flooding on the morning of 20 May following the collapse of two dams. The company has now stated that “significant progress continues to be made on clean-up and recovery”, including the restoration of utilities, infrastructure, and logistics across the site to normal operations.