PHILADELPHIA – The Dow Chemical Co. successfully completed a critical debottlenecking project at its Freeport, TX, facility that increased capacity for glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) by 30 percent annually. The project, which was announced in December 2015, was launched to provide much needed capacity to help Dow meet increasing global customer demand for GMA, a versatile monomer for specialty coatings and resins.

“The Dow Freeport team surpassed our initial project goals in terms of added capacity, and they did so ahead of schedule and while maintaining our excellent safety performance,” said Kate Glasser, Dow Global Business Director for Monomers. “The successful completion of this project will enhance our abilities as a world-class monomers organization and better help our customers develop high-performance coatings that benefit from GMA’s dual acrylic and epoxy functionality.”

GMA improves the quality and performance for automotive and powder coatings, radiation-curable coatings, waterborne resins, industrial and protective finishes, appliance and hardware finishes, adhesives, and plastic modifiers.