The Urethane Blog
March 9, 2023
Herman Stone Found Better Ways to Make Polyurethane Foam
Chemist, who died at age 98, also visited schools to share his family’s Holocaust experiences
Herman Stone obtained two-dozen patents and was an expert witness on mattress flammability. Photo: Richard S. Stone
March 9, 2023 10:00 am ET2
Herman Stone, whose Jewish family fled Germany when he was 14 years old in 1939, adapted swiftly to American life. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Ohio State University and worked as a researcher for U.S. chemical companies.
He obtained 24 patents, including one for a method of making soft foams used in cars and furniture. In 2007, he was elected to the Flexible Polyurethane Foam Hall of Fame. He was an expert witness on such matters as the flammability of mattresses.
Though he never entirely shed his German accent and had an unusually precise style of speaking English, Dr. Stone was sufficiently Americanized to cheer fervently for the Ohio State Buckeyes football team and the Buffalo Bills.
For decades, he made it his mission to speak regularly at schools about the Holocaust in general and his family’s escape.
“The persecution of people, it’s not just Jews,” he said in an oral history recorded for the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo, N.Y. His goal in speaking to students, he said, was “to point out to them that it’s up to them, the next generation, to see that this never happens again to any other group. We hope that at least some of them remember and will do that.”
Dr. Stone died Feb. 9 at a hospital near Buffalo. He was 98.
He was born Hermann Steinberg on Nov. 3, 1924, in Munich. (Years after moving to the U.S., he said, “my brother and I changed our name to Stone because we had no desire to be associated with Germany any longer.”)
In Germany, his father, Bernard Steinberg, worked for a maker of women’s clothing.
Many Jews were expelled from schools in the 1930s. Hermann was allowed to attend school because his father had served in the German army during World War I. “That’s no way of getting an education,” he said. “I was the only Jewish child in the class. I had no friends. There were no extracurricular activities, because those were all done by the Hitler Youth.”
His family’s synagogue was razed to make room for a parking lot.
By 1938, his parents had concluded that escaping Germany was their only chance of survival. The problem, Dr. Stone said, was that “there were not many countries that would take Jews.” Quotas for immigration into the U.S. were a small fraction of applications. His father, however, had applied early, and the family was eligible for a visa in 1939.
First, however, they had to find someone in the U.S. to sign papers promising to provide financial support if needed. The Steinbergs didn’t know anyone in the U.S. A business acquaintance of Bernard Steinberg, on a visit to the U.S., spoke to a rabbi, who found an American Jew willing to sign those papers.
Herman Stone kept the passport that allowed him to leave Germany as a teenager in 1939.Photo: Stone Family
At a U.S. consulate in Germany, the Steinbergs were told that their papers had been lost. After frantically recreating the documents, they finally received their visa.
A Nazi police official supervised the family as they packed up the few items they were allowed to keep. When he saw a small steel box, the official demanded to know what was inside. It contained Bernard Steinberg’s World War I souvenirs, including a bullet that had hit him and an X-ray of his wound. The official, apparently stung by the realization that even war veterans were being hounded out of Germany, chose to leave the family in peace to finish their packing.
“Here was a man who had done this kind of thing for years,” Dr. Stone said later, “and he had never really thought about what he was doing.”
Young Hermann, his brother Henry and their parents boarded a train in March 1939 and passed through the Netherlands. During a late-night ferry ride to England, the waves were choppy. More than 50 years later, Dr. Stone still recalled the retching of passengers. From England, the family sailed to New York.
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They chose to settle in Buffalo because they had met someone on the boat who was going there. Bernard Steinberg worked in a factory for a short time and then founded Steinberg Fine Foods to import delicacies from Europe.
Herman Stone earned a degree at Bethany College in West Virginia and served in the U.S. Army as a medical lab technician. While doing his graduate studies at Ohio State, he met Margaret “Peggy” Sluizer, a journalism student. They married in 1949.
During his career, he worked for companies including Allied Chemical & Dye Corp., Malden Mills and General Foam Inc. Bill Gollnitz, technical director at Plastomer Corp., knew Dr. Stone for five decades and was struck by his dedication to finding ways to reduce the flammability of foam in furniture and bedding. “It wasn’t part of a government regulation,” Mr. Gollnitz said. “It was just something he thought was right.”
In his free time, Dr. Stone read technical journals, science fiction and history. “You never saw him without something to read,” said Barbara Reden, one of his daughters.
Dr. Stone is survived by six children, 12 grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. His wife, Peggy Stone, died in 2019.
He never forgot relatives who didn’t escape Germany and died in the Holocaust. For his immediate family, “everything turned out well,” he said. “That didn’t happen to enough people.”
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/herman-stone-found-better-ways-to-make-polyurethane-foam-12e26a6e
March 8, 2023
Clarksburg, West Virginia. March 8, 2023
STOCKMEIER Urethanes USA, Inc. announces that it has earned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Certified Biobased Product Label for Stobielast ® S1057, Stobielast ® S 154 BIO and Stobiblend Z 1960.
Stobielast ® S 1057 is a solvent-free, moisture-curing, one-component #polyurethane binder that is designed to produce safety #surfaces and shock pads for pitches where excellent strength and flexibility are required. The #binder is mixed with specified #aggregate using an appropriate mixer to achieve a uniform blend. It provides long working time, excellent combination of strength and flexibility, low viscosity for ease of mixing and is based on #renewable materials that significantly reduce reliance on fossil-fuel based materials. Stobielast ® S 1057 meets/exceeds minimum USDA certified biobased content of 32%.
Stobielast ® S 154 BIO is a solvent-free, self-leveling, two-component #polyurethane #coating that is designed to produce spike proof #synthetic sports surfaces. This material is mixed on-site with an appropriate mixer to create a soft and durable surface that is spike resistant, self-leveling for ease of application and available in multiple colors. Stobielast ® S 154 BIO meets/exceeds minimum USDA certified biobased content of 25%.
Stobiblend Z 1960 is a biobased #polyol used as a building block for one-component and two- component #polyurethane systems. It is used in the manufacture of high-quality polyurethane #polymers. Use of this material as a polymer building-block significantly reduces the reliance on fossil-fuel based raw materials. This product is based on biobased materials and its low functionality allows for extensive versatility in PUR #formulations. Stobiblend Z 1960 contains 100% USDA certified biobased content.
The products can now display a unique USDA label that highlights its percentage of biobased content. Third-party verification for a product’s biobased content is administered through the USDA BioPreferred ® Program, which strives to increase the development, purchase, and use of biobased products. Biobased products help address climate change by offering renewable alternatives to petroleum- based products; sequester carbon dioxide, lowering the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that contribute to climate change; create and expand markets; are generally safer for people and the environment than their petroleum-based counterparts; and represent incredible technological advances and innovations.
The USDA Certified Biobased Product Label displays a product’s biobased content, which is the portion of a product that comes from a renewable source, such as plant, animal, marine, or forestry feedstocks. Utilizing renewable biobased materials displaces the need for non-renewable petroleum-based chemicals. Biobased products are cost-comparative, readily available, and perform as well as or better than their conventional counterparts.
“As a commitment to our goal of minimizing environmental and social impacts through the utilization of sustainable chemistry and solutions, we are continually looking for ways to incorporate renewable materials while meeting or exceeding the demands of markets and applications,” stated Melissa Martinkat, Chief of Staff. “Our team of scientists are currently working on further expansions to our bio-based polyol chemistry to offer even further customization, so stay tuned! STOCKMEIER Urethanes takes great pride in its goal to mitigate the use of non-renewable materials. Finding sustainable alternatives is the smart solution!”
“We applaud STOCKMEIER Urethanes USA, Inc. for earning the USDA Certified Biobased Product Label,” said Vernell Thompson, USDA BioPreferred Program. “The label is intended to help spur economic development, create new jobs, and provide new markets for farm commodities. But the label also makes it easier for consumers and federal buyers to locate biobased products and consider planet-friendlier options during purchase decisions. By having their products become USDA Certified Biobased, STOCKMEIER Urethanes USA, Inc. joins an expanding list of businesses combatting inaccurate marketing claims and the practice of greenwashing, while also contributing to a thriving bioeconomy that decreases our reliance on petroleum.”
In the latest Economic Impact Report released by USDA, the biobased products industry supported 4.6 million American jobs; contributed $470 billion to the U.S. economy and generated 2.79 jobs in other sectors of the economy for every biobased job. Biobased products also have a substantial environmental impact, displacing about 9.4 million barrels of oil a year, with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 12.7 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents per year.
March 3, 2023
MDI Upstream Raw Material Supplier Exploded, the Impact to China MDI Market
PUdaily | Updated: February 28, 2023
On February 24, during the maintenance period of Chongqing Yingtianhui Chlor-alkali Chemicals Co., Ltd, the storage tanks exploded, causing 1 death and 3 injuries, According to Emergency Management Agency of Chongqing Changshou Economic and Technological Development Area report on February 25, the investigation has been launched to determine the reason for the accident.
Yingtianhui is one of the upstream suppliers for BASF Chongqing’s MDI plant, supplying liquid chlorine and caustic soda.
What is the impact of explosion on China’s MDI market?
Due to the unexpected explosion, BASF Chongqing’s MDI facility, which was originally scheduled to restart this week, cannot redetermine the restart schedule. BASF has stopped trading MDI products since February 24. Subsequently, traders turned more reluctant to sell low and hold a wait-and-see stance. Some of them raised their offers slightly over the weekend.
Actually China’s MDI market had shown strong trend signals before the explosion.
February Market Review: In February, China’s MDI market showed a trend of “strong uptrend-pullbacks-rebound”. In early February, the major suppliers raised their list prices, and Covestro’s weekly guide prices were higher than market expectations. The MDI market showed a strong uptrend due to short supply after Spring Festival holiday, and some downstream manufacturers actively stocked up. But the market turned weak since the second week, and demand in industries such as pipe insulation and panels recovered slowly. Meanwhile, more speculative traders lowered offers to sell low-cost sources obtained before holidays, and low-priced Middle Eastern imports flooded into the market, driving market prices to stop hikes and experience slight pullbacks. In late February, prices of aniline, the main feedstock of MDI, kept rising. On February 24, mainstream reference offers of aniline in China had risen to CNY 12,350/tonne, lending a firm support to the MDI market. Most traders speculated that suppliers were willing to boost the MDI market in March, so the market stopped rising and moved sideways. Negotiation prices rebounded slightly.
March Market Forecast: The major MDI suppliers in China will unveil their March list prices and February settlement prices today and tomorrow. Traders have held a strong wait-and-see mood, expecting that suppliers guide prices would be high. Besides, due to ongoing maintenance of MDI facilities in Ningbo and Chongqing, the current operating rate of MDI remains low around 70%. If the Chongqing facility fails to restart as scheduled, the supplier may continue to control its supply in the near future. With probably high list prices in March and controlled supply, traders may raise their offers. And after consumption of low-cost sources, there will also be a support for the uptrend in March MDI market.
March 3, 2023
European Polyol Prices are Decreasing Amid Weak Demand and Stock Replenishment
- 01-Mar-2023 3:11 PM
- Journalist: Peter Schmidt
As per the data sources, Polyol prices have consistently decreased in the European region from the beginning of 2023. In February 2023, Polyol prices decreased by almost 3.2% from the previous month’s discussions. At the end of the week, which concluded on February 24, 2023, Polyether Polyol prices in Germany and the United Kingdom settled at USD 2800/MT and USD 2880/MT, respectively.
The key reason for this decline in Polyol prices is the stock replenishment amid fallen offtakes from the downstream Polyurethane producers due to weak orders for the Polyurethane foam from the domestic manufacturing sector for furniture and automotive seats. According to the data sources of the Federal Motor Transport Authority, car registrations fell by 43% in the European region in February 2023.
Previously during the Q4 of 2022, most of the Polyol supplies were imported from the Asian region amid plant shutdowns by producers because of high input costs in Europe due to a spike in Natural Gas prices.
The Polyol’s input costs have decreased significantly in the region, especially from the beginning of 2023, due to a reduction in Dutch TTF and the United Kingdom’s NBP Natural Gas futures on the back of LNG’s stock replenishment because of mild weather than anticipated, further reducing the variable costs.
On the contrary, prices of Propylene Oxide, a key feedstock of Polyol, rose slightly during the past few weeks in the European region due to the spike in upstream Naphtha prices because of the recent ban and sanctions on Russian products from February 5, which increased the cost pressure.
As per the ChemAnalyst estimation, “Polyol price trend is likely to remain weak in March due to sufficient availability of product supplies. At the same time, various plants in the region are going for maintenance shutdown, including Toluene Diisocyanate plants, indicating sufficient availability of Polyurethane components.
March 3, 2023
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