Andrew Liveris told the Financial Times that over the past few months he "felt I was in a rugby scrum" as takeover rumors intensified and the alleged plot to sell the company to a buyout group led to the sacking of two high-level employees. The turmoil at Dow, the largest chemical group in the US, underlines the pressures faced by companies that attempt to overhaul their business while remaining listed, bucking the current trend for private equity takeovers. Mr Liveris argued that the majority of shareholders backed his plan to reduce Dow's reliance on commodity businesses and focus on higher-margin products in an attempt to reduce the traditional cyclicality of its earnings. "Few people remember that in 2002-2003 we were on our knees. We have earned the right to transform this company," he said, noting that unlike most of its competitors Dow wanted to remain independent and publicly listed.

Private equity firms Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. [KKR.UL] and TPG [TPG.UL] are no longer involved in the process, these sources told Reuters, with Carlyle Group's status unclear. Blackstone Group [BG.UL] remains in the bidding, separate sources say. Apollo Management appears to have advanced to the second round as well, sources say. At least two corporate buyers -- Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) (2010.SE: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's largest chemical firm by market value, and Basell (BASL.UL: Quote, Profile, Research), the Dutch petro-chemical maker -- are also expected to submit second-round offers for the division, according to some of the sources. It was unclear whether Koch Industries, the world's largest private company, which Reuters previously reported had partnered with Blackstone, was still in the running.

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, said this month that he got the idea as a teenager in the 1930s after his family began flinging popcorn can lids around to burn off the tryptophan from a Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't until 1955, though, that he invented the plastic disc, which he originally named the Pluto Platter in honor of all the UFO sightings being reported at the time. Two years later, Mr. Morrison sold the rights to the disc to Wham-O Inc., which patented it as the Frisbee. The name was changed to evoke the pie tins made by the Frisbie Pie Co. of Bridgeport, Conn., which Yale students had been tossing around for years.

The effect of heat sealing temperature, time, and pressure on the heat sealing strength of five commercially available packaging films has been evaluated in order to obtain the strongest peelable seal for ‘easy-open’ packaging applications. The mechanical and physical properties of the seal are evaluated. An innovative method and technique to measure the heat sealing properties of different packaging materials is outlined. Inflection points on the temperature-time sealing profile were obtained and determined to be equivalent to the fusion temperature. The fusion temperatures correlated well with the highest peel strength of seals made at the experimentally determined temperatures. The highest peel seal strength has been achieved at a temperature near the fusion point, but below the melting point. The seals made above the fusion point result in weld seals. The pressure has limited effect on the sealing properties of the sealed films in the range tested for this work. The method has been found to be applicable to design of peelable heat seals for many packaging materials and seems to have promise as a method of process measurement and validation for heat seal processes. The project foresees the potential use of this method into other widely used packaging materials, and the method can be useful in the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system for heat sealing processes.

This article reports on preliminary studies of several comparative packaging properties between polyethylene terephthalate (PET) packaging films and biodegradable biopolymers such as polycarpolactone (PCL), polylacticacid (PLA), amorphous PLA (aPLA), and polyhydroxyalcanoates copolymer with 8 mol% valeriate (PHBV) and of some nanobiocomposites, in terms of thermal and retorting resistance (thermal humid processes) and oxygen, water vapor, aroma, and solvent barrier by means of time-resolved synchrotron radiation, FT-IR and direct permeation methods. This work suggests that while PHBV can easily withstand retorting and shows excellent water and aroma (limonene and linalool) barriers compared with PET, its solvent resistance (toluene and ethanol) and oxygen barrier properties are poorer. First, trials with compression molded food contact complying nanobiocomposites of PCL and aPLA show enhanced oxygen barrier but are not sufficient, as yet, to outperform high-oxygen-barrier grades of PET film.

The relationship between biaxial stretching and oriented polypropylene film properties is studied. Initial films have been made with a 6x6 areal draw ratio (ADR) while reducing the transverse direction (TD) drawing speed and maintaining the machine direction (MD) speed. Slowing the TD speed increases the final TD drawing force and produces anisotropic film shrinkage. Varying the draw ratios in both directions creates anisotropic tensile properties. By changing both drawing speeds and draw ratios, films with similar shrinkage but differing tensile properties have been made.

Blends of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polyamide-6 (PA6) are produced via blown film extrusion to study the effect of freeze-line position and stretching force on blend morphology. An experimental setup is designed to measure the stretching force as a function of draw ratio (DR) and freeze-line position for 4, 6, and 10 wt% PA6 in LDPE. Numerical simulations of the non-isothermal and viscoelastic process are in good agreement with the experimental data of film dimensions. However, as reported many times in the literature, the calculated stretching force is underestimated and can be predicted more precisely by using a simple correction factor. The results also show that the dispersed phase deformation increases with DR and decreases with freeze-line height.

Conventional Ziegler-Natta catalyzed high density polyethylene (HDPE) homopolymer is used as a moisture barrier in the production of multilayer films for packaging dry food-stuffs and other moisture sensitive products. Barrier properties for these HDPEs are improved by narrowing the molecular weight distribution (MWD) and decreasing the molecular weight, at the expense of melt strength and processability. NOVA Chemicals Corporation has developed a new class of single site catalyzed high density polyethylene (sHDPE) resins for moisture barrier applications utilizing Advanced SCLAIRTECH^TM Technology and NOVA Chemicals’ proprietary single site catalyst. These new sHDPE resins offer superior moisture barrier properties, exceeding the barrier performance of multilayer HDPE component films, without compromising processability.

Most polyolefins exhibit a degree of ‘tackiness’ which cannot readily be processed into packaging films without the presence of special additives. Many current polyolefin film formulations contain fatty acid amides (slip agents) and inorganic materials (antiblock agents) to reduce friction resistance and lower film-to-film adhesion, respectively. This study demonstrates that it is possible to optimize slip and antiblock additives in order to obtain desirable friction and blocking force while maintaining a good printability.