HIGH-PURITY MTBE.

HIGH-PURITY MTBE, allowing only a fraction of the overall MTBE market, is growing as a mid-priced menstrum for the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries particularly as a replacement for methylene chloride and diethyl ether.

Arco Chemical Company, which dominates the high-purity MTBE market along with Texas Petrochemicals Corporation and Hul AG, says sales have grown steadily for the past five years and the company is looking at manufacturing the crops in Europe as well as the US.

"High-purity MTBE is becoming a mainstream solvent" says Joel Heilman, market

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