DuPont is a world wide
leader for titanium dioxide, and its production has the biggest
share at the company output.
We produce a quarter of world titanium dioxide volume. Our target
is to utilize the company’s capacities and extended
knowledge to assist our clients in their attainig for success.
DTT helps its customers not only by selling high quality product,
and also consulting the clients on the product application.
The DeLisle facility is the second-largest titanium dioxide maker
in the country.
June 14, 2007 DuPont
DuPont Breaks Ground for
New Titanium Tetrachloride Unit in Tennessee
$30 Million Investment for High Purity Chemical
Construction has begun on a new 100 million pound per year
titanium tetrachloride production facility at the DuPont titanium
dioxide plant in New Johnsonville, Tenn. Plans for the new $30
million facility were announced last October. The unit is
expected to begin operations in the summer of 2008.
Unique titanium dioxide manufacturing technology allows DuPont to
increase titanium tetrachloride production without affecting the
company’s capacity to produce titanium
dioxide at New Johnsonville. DuPont is the world’s largest manufacturer of titanium
dioxide, a white pigment widely used in the coatings, plastics
and paper industries.
“The
groundbreaking for this project represents a significant step
toward the globalization of our titanium tetrachloride business,”
said Global
Business Manager Steve Thomas. “It also represents another
strategic success for our Business Extensions group which creates
new ventures within DuPont Titanium Technologies .”
The Business
Extensions group was also responsible for last year’s launch of a new process for
making parts from titanium metal powder.
Titanium tetrachloride is an intermediate chemical produced
during the early steps of the chloride process for manufacturing
titanium dioxide. In addition to its use in titanium metal
manufacturing, it is essential to the production of certain
plastics as well as films used in shopping bags and a broad
spectrum of consumer products. The chemical also has specialized
applications in pearlescent and metallic pigments used in
products ranging from cars and cosmetics to bicycle helmets.
Titanium metal increasingly is being used in everything from
airplanes to sporting goods and chemical processing equipment.
DuPont Titanium Technologies serves customers globally in the
coatings, paper and plastics industries. The company operates
plants at DeLisle, Miss.; New Johnsonville, Tenn.; Edge Moor,
Del.; Altamira, Mexico; and Kuan Yin, Taiwan, all of which use
the chloride manufacturing process. The company also operates a
plant in Uberaba, Brazil, for finishing titanium dioxide and a
mine in Starke, Fla. Technical service centers are located in
Uberaba, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; Mechelen, Belgium; Kuan
Yin, Taiwan; Ulsan, Korea; Wilmington, Del.; and Shanghai, China,
to serve the European, Middle Eastern, U.S., Asian and Latin
America markets.
DuPont is a science-based products and services company. Founded
in 1802, DuPont puts science to work by creating sustainable
solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people
everywhere. Operating in more than 70 countries, DuPont offers a
wide range of innovative products and services for markets
including agriculture and food; building and construction;
communications; and transportation.
四塩化チタン
酸化チタンを生成するのに使われる。
Sierra Club Chronicles
Episode 3: Dioxin, Duplicity & Dupont
http://www.sierraclub.org/tv/episode-dupont.asp
Sierra Club Chronicles is
seven David vs. Goliath stories: the dramatic efforts of
committed individuals across the country working to protect the
health of their environment and communities, hosted by Daryl
Hannah.
Produced by Brave New Films in association with Sierra Club
Productions.
Watch the full 30-minute episode here, or scroll down for more
information about the film, clips, and more.
The DuPont plant in DeLisle, Mississippi has been releasing large
amounts of dioxin and heavy metals for nearly 20 years. This film
explores health problems being experienced by residents and
former workers, and evidence that oysters in the area exported
for sale around the U.S. have been contaminated by DuPont's
poisonous discharges. About 2,000 people have filed lawsuits
against DuPont alleging pollution from this facility has harmed
their health.
Delisle, Mississippi: For nearly 20 years, the DuPont plant in
DeLisle, Mississippi, has released high levels of toxic dioxin
and other heavy metals into the air and water. Despite alarming
illnesses and cancer clusters surrounding the plant, DuPont has
maintained that it upholds a strong public safety record.
"It didn't take a doctor or scientist to figure out - hey,
us guys are all working here - there's got to be something here.
In two generations the only thing that has changed is the
[DuPont] chemical plant built down there - it's not hard to make
a connection if you live here and watch it going on and see
it," questions Greg Cuevas, a former employee of the Dupont
plant in DeLisle, who lost his own kidneys due to the dioxins.
Myra Marsh, a Delisle resident, now wonders if in her eagerness
to work for the new plant it ended up costing her the use of her
legs and put her in a wheelchair for life.
After four years of interviews and tireless researching of the
environmental abuses of DuPont the first in a massive lawsuit
against DuPont brought by over 2,000 people who worked in, or
lived by, the plant is followed in the episode.
With unprecedented access to this Southern court room, we follow
the lives of the people who have been directly affected by the
pollution as they tell about living with DuPont for years, cope
with terminal illnesses suffered by themselves and family
members, and as they prepare and then testify - some of them with
only months to live.
June 13, 2007 The
Associated Press
DuPont Co. asks judge to throw out dioxin lawsuits
The DuPont Co. has asked a Jones County judge to dismiss more of
the remaining 1,951 cases alleging toxic exposure to the release
of titanium dioxide二酸化チタン from its DeLisle plant on the Gulf
Coast.
Circuit Judge Billy Joe Landrum has not ruled on the request.
This past week, a Jones County jury rejected a couple’s claim that dioxins from the
DeLisle plant were responsible for the death of their daughter.
The DeLisle facility is the second-largest titanium dioxide maker
in the country. Titanium dioxide is a white pigment used in
paint, plastics, toothpaste and other products.
The case was the second of the lawsuits to make it to trial.
In 2005, a Jones County jury awarded Bay St. Louis oysterman Glen
Strong $14 million in damages after concluding dioxins from the
DeLisle plant did cause his rare blood cancer. Strong’s wife, Connie, received $1.5
million for loss of “love and companionship.”
DuPont has appealed
the Strong verdict to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
In its motion to dismiss, which gives only one side of the legal
argument, DuPont claims none of the plaintiffs have alleged to
have a specific injury.
Instead, the plaintiffs only fear a “potential”
injury in the
future caused by chemicals released over the years from the
DeLisle facility, DuPont said.
“Mere
exposure to a potentially harmful substance is not an injury,”
DuPont attorneys
wrote in court documents. “All plaintiffs who have not stated
any other claim against DuPont should have their claims
dismissed.”
DuPont lawyers said
their position is supported by a decision in a 2004 lawsuit filed
against the Boeing Company and Brush Engineered Materials, in
which former employees alleged they were exposed to products
containing beryllium while working at Boeing’s facilities at the Stennis Space
Center in Hancock County.
The plaintiffs in that lawsuit did not allege any physical injury
but sued to have future medical examinations paid for by the
defendants through a medical monitoring fund.
The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that state
law does not recognize a cause of action for medical monitoring.
The justices said the “possibility of a future injury is
insufficient to maintain a tort claim,”
according to court
papers filed by DuPont.
Jury Finds DuPont Dioxins
Not Liable for Child's Death
June 12, 2007 AP
A Jones County, Mississippi jury has rejected a couple's claim
that dioxins from the DuPont Co.'s plant on the Mississippi Gulf
Coast were responsible for the death of their daughter.
The jury verdict came in a lawsuit filed by Kerman and Naomi
Ladner of DeLisle, whose 8-year-old daughter, Haley, died in July
2000 of liver cancer. She also had heart problems, and, according
to lawsuit, the Ladners claimed both conditions were caused by
dioxins released from DuPont's DeLisle plant.
The Ladners, who lived near the plant, had sought punitive
damages of up to $30 million.
The DeLisle facility is the second-largest titanium dioxide maker
in the country. Titanium dioxide is a white pigment used in
paint, plastics, toothpaste and other products.
DuPont officials had said science doesn't support the Ladners'
claims.
"We understand the Ladners have been through so much and we
knew this would be an emotional trial,'' said Mary Kate Campbell,
a legal spokeswoman for DuPont. "But we're glad the jurors
were able to look past emotion and come to a conclusion based on
the evidence.''
The case was the second of nearly 2,000 similar lawsuits to make
it to trial.
In 2005, a Jones County jury awarded Bay St. Louis oysterman Glen
Strong $14 million in damages after concluding dioxins from the
DeLisle plant did cause his rare blood cancer. Strong's wife,
Connie, received $1.5 million for loss of "love and
companionship.''
DuPont lawyers have appealed the Strong verdict to the
Mississippi Supreme Court.
During Strong's trial, DuPont called no expert witnesses in its
defense. Hours before the trial began, the Supreme Court declined
to hear the chemical giant's appeal of a lower-court ruling that
excluded nine DuPont witnesses from testifying.
In the Ladner trial, DuPont called several witnesses to rebut
claims made by the plaintiffs.
The Jones County jury found that DuPont "negligently
released dioxins and arsenic from the DeLisle facility'' but did
not link the release to the death of the Ladners' daughter.
"We feel like it's a good day for science because we were
able to call experts who were some of the best in their fields,''
said Deborah Kuchler, DuPont's lead trial lawyer. "We feel
like (the expert testimony) was very persuasive to the jury's
conclusion that there was no connection between DuPont's
operation and Haley Ladner's illness.''
Plaintiff attorney Al Stewart, who led the Ladners' legal team,
was disappointed the jury could not find a connection between the
released dioxins and the liver cancer that killed Haley.
"Another jury in Mississippi has found DuPont negligently
releases dioxins and arsenic from its DeLisle facility,'' he
said. "While we are saddened by the jury's remaining
verdict, we feel vindicated by the undisputed fact that two
separate juries have weighed in on DuPont's conduct and found
DuPont has failed to act responsibly.''
Miss. Supreme Court overturns $14 M award against DuPont, orders new trial
The Mississippi Supreme Court, citing cumulative errors, overturned Thursday a $15.5 million judgment against DuPont and ordered a new trial in a lawsuit brought by an oyster fisherman who claimed chemicals from a dioxin plant caused his rare blood cancer.
A Jones County jury in 2005 found DuPont DeLisle at fault for causing Glen Strong's multiple myeloma. Besides the $14 million in compensatory damages to the Bay St. Louis man, the jury awarded Strong's wife, Connie, $1.5 million for loss of "love and companionship."
No punitive damages were awarded.
DuPont DeLisle is located about five miles from Strong's home. The DeLisle plant makes titanium dioxide, a white pigment used in paint, plastics, toothpaste and other products.
DuPont called no witnesses in its defense, relying on testimony of Strong's doctors, who testified there is no way to determine the root of multiple myeloma.
Strong's lawyers claimed dioxins - chemicals that that can be hazardous even in small amounts - entered Strong's body through the air and by eating oysters harvested from St. Louis Bay. Strong told jurors he ate oysters about four times a week.
The Supreme Court sided with DuPont on several issues the company raised on appeal.
The court said the trial judge erred on allowing into evidence statements from Strong's two treating physicians several days after the trial already had started.
The court said it agreed with DuPont that the affidavits altered the testimony doctors had given in depositions before trial. Both sets of documents were admitted into evidence.
According to the court record, the doctors said in their depositions that there are no known causes of multiple myeloma. In the affidavits, the doctors altered their testimony to state that they were not experts in the causation of Strong's multiple myeloma, had no opinion as to the cause of multiple myeloma and specialized only in the treatment of multiple myeloma.
"The affidavits ... clearly were not furnished to DuPont sufficiently in advance of the trial to provide DuPont with a fair opportunity to prepare to meet the affidavits. Nor did they (the Strongs) afford DuPont notice of their intention to offer the statement and the particulars of the affidavits," Justice Chuck Easley wrote in the 6-2 majority opinion of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court also upheld DuPont's challenges to testimony that the court said was irrelevant to the case.
Presiding Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., in a dissent, said there was substantial evidence to support the verdict for the Strongs.
Diaz said the majority of the court was ignoring that DuPont knowingly deposited tons of toxic material into the waters of St. Louis Bay for years, was cited by the government for its dioxin emissions and was aware of the risks to humans exposed to dioxins.
Diaz said he believed the affidavits from the doctors were no different from their depositions.
"The doctors' statements that they did not know the cause of Strong's cancer could only help DuPont's defense," Diaz said.