Royal DSM N.V., a global life sciences and materials sciences company headquartered in the Netherlands, and Novomer Inc., based in Waltham, MA, have announced an agreement to jointly develop a revolutionary coating resin using carbon dioxide (CO₂) as a raw material.

This development agreement follows a cooperation agreement and an investment by DSM Venturing in Novomer in 2007. The joint development project will benefit from the broad variety of DSM’s technologies and market access, in combination with the unique, efficient CO₂ polymerization technology of Novomer. 

The chemistry and process technology for producing polymers from CO₂ and propylene oxide (PO) will be developed by Novomer, while DSM will convert the polymers into resins and formulate them for target applications such as coatings, adhesives, and graphic arts. Initial results are encouraging and suggest that this project might lead to completely new and improved application properties in coatings.

For more information, visit www.novomer.com.