DuPont Achieves Significant Progress on PFOA Phase Out

DuPont published a progress report announcing significant progress in developing new high-performance products that will enable the company to no longer make, buy or use PFOA by 2015, or earlier if possible.

This report summarizes efforts to reduce PFOA emissions from our global manufacturing facilities and to find and use alternatives to PFOA in reformulated products that benefit consumers and play an important role in the economy.

“We are proud of our accomplishments that have allowed us not only to move toward our phaseout commitment, but also to serve customer needs,” said David Boothe, global business manager – DuPont Fluoroproducts.

The following highlights underscore the advances that have been made:

* Introduced new Echelon™ technology which reduces PFOA content by 99 percent in aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion (AFD) products. DuPont now has converted customers representing over 95 percent of its sales volume for AFD products to the newly formulated Echelon™ technology.
* Commercialized new DuPont™ Capstone™ fluorotelomer products that are made from short-chain compounds that cannot breakdown to PFOA in the environment. Capstone™ products are available in home furnishings, fire fighting foam, fluorosurfactants, and leather end uses. In 2009, DuPont will introduce additional products for paper packaging, textile and other end use markets.
* Developed PFOA replacement technology and successfully used this technology in our global manufacturing facilities to produce test materials for all our major fluoropolymer product lines. We have begun to supply fluoropolymer products made without PFOA to customers for testing in their processes, and we are working to obtain the appropriate regulatory approvals for this technology.