Products for the Common Good
FMC Corporation has long focused on the development of product innovations that respect and enhance our world while also protecting and improving human health. These products do more than make life more enjoyable; they prevent illness, advance the sustainability of our planet and assist our customers and partners in utilizing renewable resources. A few examples of such innovations include:
§ Food Safety and Health: The superior disinfectant and anti-microbial properties of peracetic acid are increasingly being applied to surfaces and equipment that come in contact with food, enhancing food safety and safeguarding against pathogenic and microbial threats to human health.
§ Chemical Security: These same properties make peracetic acid an effective disinfecting substitute where necessary for chlorine in wastewater.
§ Alternative Energy: Already an effective energy source, the next generation of lithium power is being tested by the Department of Defense as a way to reduce the weight of current batteries carried by soldiers in the field. It also has significant potential for the next generation of hybrid automobiles.
§ Energy Utilization: Hydrogen peroxide is capable of increasing the extraction of oil from tar sands by some 30%, allowing for more efficient production.
§ International Mariculture: FMC’s worldwide support to establish seaweed farming industries over the last 40 years has resulted in the establishment of over 100,000 jobs in developing countries in East Africa and Southeast Asia. The production of farmed seaweed is now a commercial enterprise in Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Madagascar and Tanzania, supplying the raw material for carrageenan, the essential ingredient for a variety of food, pharmaceutical and personal care products.
§ HIV Inhibitor: The Population Council’s FDA testing of a female contraceptive in southern Africa is nearing completion. The product appears to be an effective way to inhibit the spread of the HIV virus and a special grade of FMC’s carrageenan is being used as the active ingredient.
§ Air Quality Control: A dry sodium sesquicarbonate injection process removes SO2 and SO3 and a wet soda ash injection process removes SO3 from stack gases to improve air quality and visibility, as well as increasing the removal of other pollutants such as NOx and Hg.
§ Greenhouse Gas Reduction: A sodium carbonate food additive produced by FMC is used in feed for cattle to reduce the release of methane gas.
§ Biomedical Applications: FMC’s NovaMatrix ultra-pure alginates, chitosans and hyalurons find diverse utility and acceptance in a wide range of novel biomedical applications, including tissue engineering, cell-based therapies, advanced drug delivery and wound healing.
§ Malaria Control: In addition to enhancing the word’s food supply, FMC agricultural products are approved by the World Health Organization for use in housing structures in developing countries to diminish the presence of malaria-bearing mosquitoes.
§ Soil Remediation: Persulfates are the principal oxidizing agent in FMC’s soil remediation technology that is increasingly being used to reclaim hazardous waste sites and brown fields. The technology has been approved by EPA and state environmental agencies for use on a range of organic pollutants, dense non-aqueous phase liquids, and contaminants from underground storage tanks.
§ Wastewater Pre-Treatment: A patented FMC process using high temperature oxidation with activated hydrogen peroxide or persulfates is being used to treat industrial organic wastewater. The process reduces organic contamination by up to 99%, oxidizes organic effluents that are difficult to treat by conventional biological/physical method and is a very cost-competitive alternative relative to carbon adsorption, incineration, or external treatment.