Great Lakes Chemical Corporation
Encyclopedia
Chemtura Corporation
Chemtura Corporation is a marketer of specialty chemicals, polymer products, and processing equipment for a variety of industries. The company formed in 2005 from the merger of two other corporations: Great Lakes Chemical Corporation of West Lafayette, Indiana, and Crompton Corporation of...
.
History
Great Lakes Chemical Company was founded in MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
in 1936 to extract bromine
Bromine
Bromine ") is a chemical element with the symbol Br, an atomic number of 35, and an atomic mass of 79.904. It is in the halogen element group. The element was isolated independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob Löwig and Antoine Jerome Balard, in 1825–1826...
from underground salt water brine deposits. It was acquired by McClanahan Oil in 1948 and rechristened Great Lakes Oil and Chemical Company, but by 1960 the company had moved away from oil and gas, instead focusing on the research and production of bromine-based chemicals. At about this time the company assumed its current name (Great Lakes Chemical Corporation) and built the world's largest bromine plant in southern Arkansas.
Great Lakes grew through the following decades, acquiring several smaller companies in its market and establishing its world headquarters in West Lafayette, Indiana
West Lafayette, Indiana
As of the census of 2010, there were 29,596 people, 12,591 households, and 3,588 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,381.1 people per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 74.3% White, 17.3% Asian, 2.7% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.03% Pacific...
. Among those acquired by Great Lakes was BioLab in 1996, a producer of pool and spa products.
In July 2005, Great Lakes merged with Crompton Corporation
Crompton Corporation
Crompton Corporation , , was a chemical research, production, sales and distribution company headquartered in Middlebury, Connecticut. The company produced specialty chemicals used for polymers, fire suppressants and retardants, pool and spa water purification systems and various other applications...
(formerly Crompton and Knowles) to form Chemtura Corporation
Chemtura Corporation
Chemtura Corporation is a marketer of specialty chemicals, polymer products, and processing equipment for a variety of industries. The company formed in 2005 from the merger of two other corporations: Great Lakes Chemical Corporation of West Lafayette, Indiana, and Crompton Corporation of...
, now headquartered in Philadelphia.
The ticker symbol for Great Lakes on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
was GLK.
Environmental impact
Great Lakes is the largest U.S. methyl bromide supplier in the U.S. producing more than 40 million pounds annually at their El Dorado, Arkansas plants. Great Lakes Chemical's involvement in the bromine business has its roots in leaded gasoline. When tetraethyl lead (TEL) was invented as a gasoline additive back in the 1920s, it was found to leave a corrosive byproduct in the engine. Adding ethylene dibromide (EDB) to TEL solved the problem. As leaded gasoline began to be phased out in the U.S., Great Lakes developed international markets for its products. Globalization of leaded gasoline makes TEL responsible for nearly 90 percent of airborne lead pollution in Third World cities. Some EDB in leaded gasoline converts to methyl bromide when burned. The World Meteorological Organization has determined that the continuing exhaust from automobiles using leaded gasoline is one of the three potentially major sources of atmospheric methyl bromide.Great Lakes was a major producer of polybrominated diphenyl ethers. These compounds were marketed as flame retardants until they were banned in Europe. These persistent compounds can mimic the effect of thyroid hormones, and interfere with reproduction and nerve and tissue development.