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6 POWDER COATING, November 2018 ness to form the business area High Performance Materials. Clariant will then divest its remaining Plastics and Coatings business by 2020. Stonehouse Process Safety opens its doors PRINCETON, N.J.—Vahid Ebadat, Ph.D., has launched Stonehouse Pro- cess Safety to provide expert process safety consulting, testing, training, and litigation support services in the special- ist areas of dust flash fires and explo- sions, NFPA 652, gas and vapor flam- mability, electrostatic hazards, and thermal decomposition. Stonehouse will be servicing clients in the pharma- ceutical, chemical, food, metals, plas- tics, and other process manufacturing industries. Ebadat serves as CEO and has worked extensively as a process and operational hazards consultant for the chemical, pharmaceutical, food, oil and gas, and paper and wood industries. OSHA announces Harwood Grant awards WASHINGTON, D.C.—OSHA has announced the awardees of this year's Susan Harwood Training Grants, monetary awards to unions, nonprof- its, and educational institutions that support worker-safety education. Two chapters of the Finishing Trades Insti- tute, the American Road and Trans- portation Builders Association, Associ- ated General Contractors of America, and the Virginia Ship Repair Associa- tion are among the 74 organizations that will receive a total of $9.3 million in funding for programs focused on ed- ucation for small business owners and training for vulnerable populations in high-hazard jobs. The Harwood program, established in 1978 and given its current name in 1997, concentrates on funding pro- grams that serve underserved, low-liter- acy, and high-hazard industry workers. The future of the grants is in question, as earlier this year it was revealed that the DOL planned to defund the program in fiscal year 2019 in order to hire new Compliance Assistance Specialists, who would, among other duties, provide training that would take the place of those funded by the Harwood program. laborate with business partners. Axalta will host various training classes throughout the year, along with cus- tomized training classes for customers. Paradigm Metals builds new facility PFLUGERVILLE, Tex.—Paradigm Metals plans to move into a new 100,000-square-foot facility in Hutto, Tex., in 2019 and substantially grow its business. The company, which pro- vides precision sheet metal fabrication, machining, screen printing, powder coating, and additional services, ex- pects to invest in excess of $10 million on the new facility. The company also operates a 18,000-square-foot facility in Taylor, Tex. PPG highlights shed, barn coatings in new brochure PITTSBURGH, Pa.—PPG has pub- lished a six-page brochure highlighting its family of coatings for sheds, barns, and other portable buildings. The shed and barn coatings may be used on a va- riety of structures, including tool stor- age sheds, barns, log cabins, pergolas, pavilions, and carports. The coatings are designed specifically to meet the unique challenges facing shed and barn manufacturers. In addition to full product descriptions, the brochure provides color swatches and key bene- fits for each product. PPG develops, manufactures, and supplies paints, coatings, and materials for construc- tion, consumer products, industrial, and transportation applications. Clariant combines businesses with SABIC MUTTENZ, Switzerland—Global specialty chemicals supplier Clariant has announced plans to combine some of its coatings-related business units with segments of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SBIC), which re- cently became a major shareholder in the Swiss firm. The move comes ahead of a planned strategy to divest over other coatings-related business units in coming years. The transaction aims to combine Clar- iant's Additives and Masterbatches with parts of SABIC's Specialties busi- leaves. The chloroplasts are not alive, but still trigger the conversion of car- bon dioxide into glucose. While iso- lated chloroplasts normally stop func- tioning within a few hours of being drawn from a plant, the other team members demonstrated methods to prolong the catalytic lifetime of the chloroplasts. The polymer also draws carbon dioxide from the air. The material is a gel matrix composed of a polymer made from aminopropyl methacrylamide and glucose, an en- zyme called glucose oxidase, that along with the chloroplasts, becomes stron- ger as carbon is incorporated. Though current results are not yet strong enough to be used as a building mate- rial, there is potential for the material to work as a coating or crack filler. The team, now focused on optimizing the material's properties, has also devel- oped methods to produce the polymer by the ton, though additional advances in backbone chemistry and materials science are needed before work can ex- pand into construction materials and composites. One primary advantage to these kinds of materials is that they can repair themselves once exposed to sun- light as well as some kinds of indoor lighting. Since results have been positive, the US Department of Energy is backing a new program directed by Strano to further develop the material. Axalta names new CEO, opens wood coatings center PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—Axalta Coat- ing Systems has announced that Ter- rence Hahn has officially joined the company as CEO, succeeding Charlie Shaver, who will continue at Axalta as non-executive chairman. Hahn will also serve on Axalta's board of direc- tors. Hahn previously worked at Honeywell and Air Products. In addition, Axalta has opened a new Learning and Development Center in Pomona, Calif. The center is dedicated to industrial wood coatings technology and will be used for hands-on training to serve the industry's growing demand for opportunities for customers to col-