Dow And Oxy Will Form Joint Venture

At an investor day event in New York City last week, Dow Chemical revealed that it plans a joint venture with Occidental Chemical to make a precursor for a refrigerant with low global-warming potential (GWP). The precursor, a chlorocarbon known as HCC-1230xa, is designed to allow the production of hydrofluoroolefin (HFO)-1234yf, a refrigerant approved in Europe and the U.S. to replace hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-134a in automotive air conditioners. HFC-134a has a GWP 1,340 times greater than an equivalent amount of CO₂; HFO-1234yf’s GWP is just four times that of CO_2. The two firms say they plan to make world-scale quantities of HCC-1230xa but haven’t yet decided on the size and location of a production unit. Among other announcements at the event, Dow revealed it will collaborate with DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory to develop energy storage materials for advanced batteries. In 2010, Dow set up a business unit, Dow Energy Materials, to sell cathode, anode, and electrolyte materials for lithium batteries.