Joint Venture Partners Select Site To Construct 1,3 Propanediol Plant

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Joint Venture Partners, E I Du Pont de Nemours and Company (NYSE: DD) (DuPont) (Wilmington, Delaware) and Tate & Lyle Company (Decatur, Illinois) has selected Loudon, Tennessee to construct a full scale 1,3 Propanediol (PDO) manufacturing plant. The plant will be constructed adjacent to the A E Staley Manufacturing Company's (Decatur, Illinois) Loudon, Tennessee's wet corn milling plant, although originally planned for an A E Staley plant site located in Decatur, Illinois.

An engineering and construction firm will be selected over the next few months with civil construction starting by the end of the year. The plant should be operational the end of 2004 or early 2005.

A E Staley, a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle, will provide the feedstock for use in the biobased technology that will be used to produce PDO. The new biological technology, developed by the DuPont and Tate & Lyle joint venture, produces PDO through the hydrolysis of cornstarch that is produced at the Loudon, Tennessee's wet corn milling plant.

After the carbohydrate base is transformed into PDO then it will be used to manufacture Duponts Sorona Polymers. These polymers will then be used in applications such as textiles, upholstery fabrics and resins. This joint venture agreement will enable Dupont to fully utilize the value of carbohydrates allowing PDO to be produced from renewable sources. The United States generates approximately 280 million metric tons per year of biomass waste such as cornstarch, rice straw and sawdust.