Cabot is a global specialty chemicals and materials company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, US. Cabot's major products are carbon black, fumed silica, inkjet colourants, capacitor materials and cesium formate drilling fluids. Cabot operates 26 plants in 21 countries and in 2009 it had sales of $2.3bn and around 4,400 employees.
The company is split into the following businesses:
Carbon black
Traditionally, Cabot's carbon black has been used as a reinforcing agent in tyres. Today, the uses of carbon black have expanded to include acting as a pigmenting, ultra violet (UV) stabilising and conductive agent in a variety of common and specialty products, including:
Plastics: used mainly for plastic masterbatch applications, such as conductive packaging, films, fibres, mouldings, pipes and semi-conductive cable compounds;
Toners and printing inks;
Coatings: used in industries such as aerospace, marine and industrial; and
Tyres and industrial rubber products: used in tyre innerliners, carcasses, sidewalls and treads, as well as in industrial rubber products, like belts, hoses and gaskets.
An intensely black powder, carbon black is produced by subjecting heavy residual oil feedstock to extremely high temperatures in a carefully controlled combustion process. Cabot manufactures grades of varying size and structure.
It produces nearly 2m tonnes/year of carbon black and sells it under the following trade names: Black pearls, Elftex, Vulcan, Mogul, Monarch, Emporer, Regal, United, Spheron and Sterling.
Inkjet colourants
Through its carbon black business, a new inkjet colourants product line has been developed. Cabot's inkjet colourants product line uses its proprietary stabilisation techniques to deliver high-quality colourants, with the following properties:
Enhanced colour;
Stability;
Durability;
Ink formulation flexibility; and
High print quality.
Fumed Metal Oxides
Cabot's fumed metal oxides business is made up of two product families: fumed silica and fumed alumina. Free-flowing powdered fumed silica products include Cab-o-sil untreated fumed silica and treated fumed silica. Cab-o-sperse is fumed silica or fumed alumina that has been pre-dispersed in water.
Due to its versatile nature, Cab-o-sil fumed silica is used in a variety of products, ranging from spark plugs and printing inks to pharmaceuticals and cake mixes.
Cabot fumed silica is used to:
provide rheology control for liquids;
serve as a reinforcing filler in elastomers;
improve free flow of powders;
dry carrier for liquids; and
emulsification agent.
Aerogel
The thermal insulator product Aerogel is claimed to be the “lightest weight” solid in the world. It has a content of 5% solid, while the remaining content is 95% air. Aerogels have extremely small pores, which sets it apart from common silica products and is used mainly for insulation, coatings, filtration and other applications.
It is sold under the Nanogel trade name for its family of silica aerogels. Cabot is the only company to commercially produce Nanogel aerogel in particulate form using a patented processes that allows it to control the aerogels' porosity, pore size and distribution.
It is also used by oil and gas operators who are developing sub-sea fields or new LNG systems. The use of Cabot’s Nanogel aerogel technology enables significant advancements in pipeline and ship design due to the combination of Nanogel aerogel’s ultra-low conductivity and its mechanical properties.
Supermetals
The supermetals business produces tantalum and niobium. More than 60% of the world's tantalum, a high performance metal, is used in electronics products. The largest application is electronic capacitors, where tantalum's ability to form stable oxide films creates highly efficient, reliable and environmentally versatile components.
In semiconductors, tantalum has emerged as an ideal barrier solution, since copper is replacing aluminium as the material of choice for interconnects.
Strength, ductility, toughness, corrosion resistance, thermal conductivity and high melting point make tantalum important in chemical and pharmaceutical processing, aerospace, energy and ballistic applications.
Tantalum is also used as alloy in turbine blades, in power turbines and jet engines, where it brings structural integrity at higher temperatures, increasing fuel efficiency.
Some 1,800 tonnes/year of tantalum is consumed in the form of metal powder and wire, ingot, fabricated forms, compounds and alloys. Cabot Supermetals is one of just a few fully integrated producers of tantalum products with the capacity to produce over a 450 tonnes/year at its two manufacturing facilities in the Japan and the US.
Specialty fluids
The specialty fluids business produces and markets cesium formate a biodegradable fluid used for large-scale drilling and completion projects. It comes from pollucite ore, which is mined by Cabot at its tantalum mine in Canada.
Cesium formate is used in a wide range of applications where oilfield companies demand improvements, including:
Minimal impact to the environment;
Significant decrease in handling risks for rig crews;
Increased reservoir productivity;
Reduction of solids laden fluids in well design;
Improved temperature and pressure stability; and
An ability to reclaim and reuse the product.
Cesium formate is free of any solid additives and can withstand extreme temperatures, increasing the life of drilling bits and other equipment. The product's monovalent nature reduces the likelihood of reservoir formation damage, providing operators with a maximised production index and overall production profile. In addition, cesium formate is biodegradable, non-corrosive and, therefore, safer for workers and the environment
Superior micropowders
Cabot superior micropowders (CSMP) employs a patented spray-based manufacturing process to produce performance powders and downstream products, and comprises the following businesses: printable electronics and displays (PEDs), fuel cells and platform development.