Business Roundup

Dow Corning has set up a surface and interface solutions research group within its technology center in Seneffe, Belgium. The lab will work with customers at the interface between silanes and other materials.

Eastman Chemical says nearly 450 employees have accepted its early retirement offer. Last fall, the firm targeted 600 jobs for elimination. However, a spokeswoman says the large number of voluntary acceptances means the firm can avoid companywide layoffs.

Dow Chemical will double capacity of its styrene/butadiene paper coating plant in Zhangjiagang, China, to 48,000 metric tons per year. The $10 million expansion is scheduled for completion in the second half of next year.

JSR Corp. has inaugurated a $5 million applications lab for chemical mechanical planarization slurries and pads in Sunnyvale, Calif. CMP slurries and pads are used by semiconductor manufacturers.

DuPont has become a seeker company on InnoCentive, the online network where companies can pose scientific problems to more than 60,000 scientists worldwide.

Novartis and Munich-based MorphoSys will collaborate to discover and develop antibody-based biopharmaceuticals. Novartis will make a $10 million investment in MorphoSys, and MorphoSys will receive more than $30 million in R&D funding and license fees over the next three years.

The BOC Group is purchasing Duke Energy's 30% share in Mexico's Compañia de Nitrógeno de Cantarell, which owns the world's largest nitrogen plant, for close to $60 million, increasing its stake to 65%. Gas from the plant is used to boost output from the Cantarell oil field. <!-- This document created using BeyondPress(TM) 4.0.1 For Macintosh.