Dow Chemical (www.dow.com) and Crystalsev, one of Brazil's largest ethanol suppliers, announced plans for a world-scale facility to manufacture polyethylene from sugar cane.

Dow Chemical (www.dow.com) and Crystalsev, one of Brazil's largest ethanol suppliers, announced plans for a world-scale facility to manufacture polyethylene from sugar cane. Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding agreed by the two companies, Dow and Crystalsev will form a joint venture in Brazil to design and build the first integrated facility of its scale in the world. It is expected to start production in 2011 and will have a capacity of 350,000 metric tons. The facility will use ethanol derived from sugar cane, an annually renewable resource, to produce ethylene, the raw material required to make polyethylene, said to be the world's most widely-used plastic.