MIDLAND, Mich. - Dow Polyurethanes, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company, has successfully completed preliminary development of natural oil polyols (NOPs) for urethane formulations and will begin product sampling with a select group of customers immediately. Dow plans to begin market developmental scale production of the next-generation polyols in 2007.

Natural oil polyols can be made from soybeans, sunflower seeds or rapeseeds, although Dow's technology currently focuses on a polyol that contains a significant percent of oil extracted from soybeans. Dow's intention is to ultimately develop a NOP-based multigenerational product line that provides customers with superior solutions to meet their needs in applications such as flexible slab, molded and some CASE applications.