GAF

Ma.nufa.cture. AU. manufacturers of butynediol use formaldehyde ethynylation processes. The earliest entrant was BASF, which, as successor to I. G. Farben, continued operations at Ludwigshafen, FRG, after World War II. Later BASF also set up a U.S. plant at Geismar, La. The first company to manufacture in the United States was GAF in 1956 at Calvert City, Ky., and later at Texas City, Tex., and Seadrift, Tex. The most recent U.S. manufacturer is Du Pont, which went on stream at La Porte, Tex., about 1969. Joint ventures of GAF and Hbls in Mad, Germany, and of Du Pont and Idemitsu in Chiba, Japan, are the newest producers. 

Ma.nufa.cture. The principal manufacturers of vinyl ethers are BASF, GAF, and Union Carbide. The first two utilize vinylation of alcohols, whereas the last reportedly uses cracking of acetals. 

Uses. Union Carbide consumes its vinyl ether production in the manufacture of glutaraldehyde [111-30-8J. BASF and GAF consume most of their production as monomers (see Vinyl polymers). In addition to the homopolymers, the copolymer of methyl vinyl ether with maleic anhydride is of particular interest. 

Amine Ethouylates, Technical Bulletin, 7.5M-189, GAF Chemicals Corporation, Wayne, N.J., 1989. 

Manufacture. There are two main 2-pyrroHdinone producers. International Specialty Products (ISP) (GAF Corporation) has manufacturing facihties in Calvert City, Kentucky, and Texas City, Texas, and BASF manufactures it at Ludwigshafen, Germany. Both producers consume most of thek production in the manufacture of l-vinyl-2-pyrrohdinone. 

Stereoregular Polymerization. Chemists at GAF Corporation were first to suggest that stereoregularity or the lack thereof is responsible for both nontacky and crystalline or tacky and amorphous polymers generated from IBVE with BF2 0(C2H )2, depending on the reaction conditions (22,23). In addition, it was shown that the crystalline polymer is actually isotactic (24). Subsequentiy, the reaction conditions necessary to form such polymers have not only been demonstrated, but the stereoregular polymerization has been extended to other monomers, such as methyl vinyl ether (25,26). 

MVE/MAN Copolymers. Various mol wt grades of poIy(methyI vinyl ether-i o-maleic anhydride) (PMVEMA) are available from International Specialty Products, Inc. (formerly GAF Corp.), under the trade name of Gantrez. Table 6 illustrates the M. and MWD found for commercially available polymers. As can be seen, high molecular weights are readily achieved. 

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