Business Roundup

BASF will close its polyacrylamide bead plant in Suffolk, Va., and consolidate production in Bradford, U.K., where it makes the raw material acrylamide. The move, to affect about 50 BASF employees, is expected to be done by January 2012.

Cytec Industries is expanding phenothiazine capacity at its plant in Mount Pleasant, Tenn. Work has begun on the first phase of the expansion, which will increase capacity by 20%. A sec­­ond phase will be com­pleted in 2013. Cytec supplies phenothiazine as an inhibitor of acrylic acid and acrylic ester polyerization.

Kumho Mitsui Chemicals will expand its annual capacity for methylene diphenyl diisocyanate by 45,000 metric tons, to 200,000 metric tons, at its facility in Yeosu, South Korea. The company is a 50-50 venture of Kumho Petrochemical and Mitsui Chemicals.

Cabot will invest $10 million in its ink-jet products facility in Haverhill, Mass. To be completed by the end of 2012, the project will double capacity for Cab-O-Jet color pigment dispersion and polymer products, the company says.

Dow Chemical has appointed Joe Harlan president of its performance products and performance systems division. He was previously head of 3M’s consumer and office business. Dow’s previous head of the unit, Juan R. Luciano, left Dow in April to become the chief operating officer of Archer Daniels Midland.

Sibur, a Russian petrochemical firm, has acquired JSC Acrylate, Russia’s only producer of acrylic acid. JSC has the capacity to make 25,000 metric tons of acrylic acid, 36,000 metric tons of butyl acrylate, and 10,000 metric tons of methyl and ethyl acrylate annually.

Eastman Chemical has acquired E&A Industries’ Dynaloy subsidiary for an undisclosed sum. Based in Indianapolis, Dynaloy makes and sells cleaning products with an emphasis on the semiconductor industry.

Chemtura has begun engineering work on a facility to produce high-viscosity poly-α-olefin synthetic oil base stocks at its Ankerweg, the Netherlands, site. The firm says the plant will start supplying European customers by 2013.

TA Instruments, a unit of Waters, has acquired Anter Corp., a Pittsburgh-based maker of systems that measure the thermal properties of materials. TA President Terry Kelly says Anter technologies complement TA’s market-leading thermal analysis product line.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals has licensed controlled-release drug delivery technology from Depomed for an early-stage program. For an up-front fee and milestones, Depomed will conduct product formulation.