Hercules Inc., Wilmington, DE, has announced the completion of the integration of its Pinova product line (formerly Hercules Resins) into its Aqualon business unit. Pinova’s wood rosin and polyterpene-based tackifiers for the adhesives markets will continue to be manufactured in the company’s Brunswick, GA, facility. The combined business will operate under the Aqualon name.

Lamberti USA, Conshohocken, PA, has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Synair Hawthorne Polyols & Surfactants manufacturing site. The plant site, located on 46 acres in Chattanooga, TN, was commissioned in 2001 and specializes in ethoxylation/propoxylation technology to produce alkoxylated adducts, including a wide range of polyols, surfactants, block copolymers, intermediates, and blends.

Lohmann Corp.has announced that its subsidiary, Lohmann Specialty Coating LLC, located in Orange, VA, will be expanding its existing manufacturing facility in early 2007. This new project will cost approximately $2 million and will add 25,000 sq. ft. of office and warehouse space.

Loparex, Willowbrook, IL, has announced several capital investments to add paper coating and film blowing capacity, and to streamline operations within North America. A high-speed paper coating line has been started at the company’s Hammond, WI, facility, as has a second multi-layer blown film extrusion line. Also, Loparex has announced that some coating lines located in its Dixon, IL, operation will be shut down in the coming months. It is expected that some of the Dixon employees will be transferred to other Loparex locations.

Semi-Kinetics, Lake Forest, CA, has announced the acquisition of three new state-of-the-art Samsung SM320 SMT assemblers that are expected to increase the company’s surface-mount capacity by 175%. The company also added a new Samsung SP450 automatic screen printer with paste and stencil inspection, and a new YesTech F1 AOI optical inspection system to verify value, polarity, presence or absence of components, and check for solder shorts or opens.

Solutia Inc., St. Louis, has expanded its distributor sales contract for Butvar®PVB resins and aqueous dispersions with Dowd and Guild Inc., San Ramon, CA, to include Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Dowd and Guild currently represents Solutia’s Specialty Additive products in California, Arizona and Nevada, and manages the order fulfillment of Butvar PVB resins from its warehouse in City of Commerce, CA.