US-based chemical company, Eastman Chemical, has decided to sell its adhesives resins business to Synthomer for $1 billion.

What are they selling?

Eastman's adhesives resins business includes tire resins, polyolefin resins, rosins, and other chemicals. The sale includes its leading hydrocarbon resins and non-hydrocarbon resins which are used as tackifiers (which alter the stickiness of the surface of an adhesive formulation). Most of this stuff ends up in tapes, labels, packaging, hygiene, construction, and tire markets.

Zooming out:

According to C&EN, Eastman told investors that its adhesives resins and tire additives businesses (which it just sold last June) weren't doing so hot. Eastman's CEO said it himself—"this sale is part of our effort to improve the performance of the Additives & Functional Products segment". Perhaps Synthomer will give the business the attention it deserves and make the acquisition worth that 11x EBITA multiple.

Read the press release here.

Minnesota-based specialty chemicals company, Ecolab, has announced the acquisition of ion-exchange resin producer, Purolite, for $3.7 billion.

Ion-exchange resins?

These are basically fancy polymers (typically crosslinked polystyrene) that have an affinity for certain molecules. Sold as beads (that look a lot like salmon roe) and packed into a column, these resins are used for things like water purification, sugar purification, radionuclide removal from spent nuclear fuel, and metal extraction from mineral ores.

What makes Purolite special?

Purolite has a unique technology that can produce chromatography resin beads with uniform particle size from a polysaccharide. That enabled them to purify mRNA vaccines and monoclonal antibodies—which, as you might imagine, have been very high growth businesses for the company. Maybe that's what convinced Ecolab to borrow $2.9 billion (and $800 million cash) to do this deal.

Read the press release here.

Japanese-based chemical company, Toray, and South Korea's LG Chem have announced the formation of a lithium-ion battery separator film joint venture (JV).

Battery separator 101:

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are primarily composed of a cathode, anode, electrolyte, and separator. The separator, which is typically a permeable membrane soaked with liquid electrolyte, prevents contact between the cathode and anode while allowing for the transport of lithium-ions across the cell. Toray makes a battery separator, called Setela, which is reportedly a porous polyethylene-based multilayer film.

Bigger picture:

Creating these porous multilayer films is a relatively simple step (here's a helpful diagram) in a much longer battery manufacturing process. This JV will start out as 50/50, build new capacity in Toray's existing facilities, and then become majority-owned and operated by LG Chem (70/30) after 2.5 years. With Toray's help, LG Chem will have a quality supply of LIB separators for years to come.

Read the press release here.