Dow Honored "Innovator of the Year" by Prestigious Ringier Technology Innovation Award

SINGAPORE, March 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dow Chemical Company's Packaging and Specialty Plastics business (P&SP), has won three prestigious awards at the 13^th Ringier Technology Innovation Awards. The Innovator of the Year was presented to Dow for receiving the highest number of votes from the panel of judges and online voters, for revolutionary innovations. It recognizes Dow's ability to deliver sustainable cutting-edge solutions by combining the power of science and technology for innovations essential to human progress. Both solutions TF-BOPE and INTUNE™ OBCs also received accolades in the "Plastics Raw Materials and Additives" category.  

"We are honored to be recognized as a leader in innovations, delivering products and solutions that create value and competitive advantage. We are committed to going beyond our current capabilities, to combine the best of science and technology to pursue game-changing solutions and collaboration opportunities that will contribute to the industry and society. By creating higher performance, environmentally friendly and sustainable products for our customers, we can reshape the world to build a better future," said Bambang Candra, Asia Pacific commercial vice president of Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics.

TF-BOPE: A Safer, More Environment-friendly, More Sustainable Asia-led Packaging Solution

TF-BOPE is a revolutionary film made with INNATE™ Precision Packaging Resins that has greater mechanical properties and material rigidity and better optical and printing performance compared to the traditional polyethylene (PE) film. It is a solution developed by the P&SP's Asia Pacific Research & Development (R&D) team and North American Material Science group based on research into the needs of packaging markets, both locally and globally.

Compared to traditional PE products, TF-BOPE is up to 80% less hazy, has twice the impact strength, thrice the puncture resistance, thrice the tensile strength, and twice the tensile modulus. The material has excellent flex cracking resistance, providing great tenacity even at low temperatures. Film made by TF-BOPE is also easy to tear, an important requirement for packaging products. These qualities denote a big leap forward over the performance of traditional PE products.

A judge from the Ringier Technology Award panel commented, "The new TF-BOPE film lets brand owners and converters replace biaxially-oriented polyamide (BOPA) as the interlayers in traditional packaging, reducing the amount of material used while strengthening the mechanical performance of packaging bags. By combining it with other PE functional layers, an all PE packaging structure can be created, which is easier to recycle, bringing more sustainable benefits to flexible packaging solutions in the China market."

INTUNE™ Blending Solutions: Changing industry with sustainable features

With INTUNE™ Polypropylene-based OBCs, polypropylene (PP) and PE can now be combined to create innovative, highly differentiated polymer blends and multi-layer structures that are compatible with existing processing technology. PE is known for toughness while PP excels in strength and heat resistance, but their poor compatibility has made it difficult to combine their advantages. INTUNE™ OBCs, for innovative polyolefin multi-layer pipe, solve this problem.

This pioneering application for PE and PP pipes is the world's first block copolymer for PE and PP. INTUNE™ is highly compatible with both PP and PE and has excellent adhesive qualities, making it possible to stick PR and PE pipes together. INTUNE™ also solves the problem of polypropylene random co-polymer (PPR) pipe brittleness at low temperatures, and strengthens PE pipes with greater heat resistance.

The judge from the Ringier Technology Award panel elaborated, "PPR pipes are used extensively in civil construction, urban engineering, hydraulic engineering and agriculture thanks to their excellent performance. However, the low-temperature brittleness has long been a pain point, especially when it is used in a low temperature environment. This innovative solution will greatly contribute to the industry."

About Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics

Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, a business unit of DowDuPont's Materials Science division, combines core strengths of R&D, worldwide reach, broad product lines and industry expertise to deliver high performing technologies for end use markets in food packaging, personal hygiene, infrastructure, consumer goods and transportation. Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics is one of the world's largest producers of polyethylene resins, specialty resins and adhesives, and is a leading innovator and collaborator across the value chain on sustainable application development and circular economy life-cycle principals for plastics.

About Dow

The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) combines science and technology knowledge to develop premier materials science solutions that are essential to human progress. Dow has one of the strongest and broadest toolkits in the industry, with robust technology, asset integration, scale and competitive capabilities that enable it to address complex global issues. Dow's market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of advanced materials, industrial intermediates, and plastics businesses deliver a broad range of differentiated technology-based products and solutions for customers in high-growth markets such as packaging, infrastructure, and consumer care. Dow is a subsidiary of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), a holding company comprised of Dow and DuPont with the intent to form three strong, independent, publicly traded companies in agriculture, materials science and specialty sectors. More information can be found at www.dow.com

About Ringier Technology Innovation Award

Inaugurated in 2006, the Ringier Technology Innovation Award for industrial manufacturing is one of the most influential industrial awards in China. It is held annually to recognize companies who have made significant contributions in China in the plastics, metalworking, coating, food & beverage, personal care & cosmetics industries. The purpose of the award is to encourage, acknowledge and reward individuals and companies who have developed new ideas, methodologies, products or technologies to improve the industries with greater energy saving and cost reduction. The 2018 Ringier Awards featured a total of 11 categories with various nominations across Asia Pacific. In the category of "Plastics Raw Materials and Additives", entries were judged against a stringent set of standards by a panel of experienced judges as well as through online votes casted by the public.

SOURCE Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics