Water, agriculture and energy: Society relies on each of these in daily life, yet as the population grows, these vital resources must be used more efficiently. Highlighting the company’s focus on providing answers to some of these critical global challenges, five of Dow’s (NYSE: DOW) market-focused solutions have been honored by R&D Magazine as part of its prestigious R&D 100 Awards.

Often referred to as the “Oscars of innovation” the annual R&D 100 Awards celebrate the most significant technology breakthroughs of the year. The winning Dow products support the need for clean water, fuel efficient cars, more abundant food resources and more efficient sources of energy. The recognition comes on the heels of five consecutive years of growth for Dow in U.S. patent grants and an all-time record-breaking year in 2013 with more than 560 U.S. patent grants.

“Having five of Dow’s new product innovations across such diverse markets honored by R&D 100 demonstrates the depth and breadth of our chemistry,” said A.N. Sreeram, corporate vice president of Dow R&D. “Each of these innovations evolved from close collaborations with our customers. At Dow, our research and development capabilities, combined with deep market knowledge, enable us to innovate across industries and sectors better than any other company.”

Each of the five Dow innovations recognized by R&D 100 was commercialized in the last year and developed as a market-focused solution, addressing global issues in a more sustainable way. These are the five award recipients:

More Fuel-Efficient Vehicles:
BETAMATE™ 1630 Structural Adhesives: Enabling lightweight vehicles to improve fuel efficiency. Automakers today are challenged to produce vehicles that meet consumer expectations and government standards for safety, comfort, performance and sustainability. BETAMATE 1630 Structural Adhesives from Dow Automotive Systems meet these challenges by bonding lightweight vehicle structures to enable significant weight reductions of about 70 to 100 kilograms over previous models. This results in greater fuel efficiency and reduced CO2 emissions.

More Abundant Food Sources:
Transform® WG Insecticide and Closer™ SC Insecticide with Isoclast™ Active: Helping to increase crop yields to feed a growing population: Sap-feeding pests have become resistant to current insecticides, presenting a growing problem for the agriculture industry. Isoclast active represents a new class of chemistry discovered and developed by Dow AgroSciences. It serves a global need, treating sap-feeding pests in all major crop groups. Isoclast is highly effective and low use rates and has minimal impact on beneficial insects.

Clean Water:
TEQUATICTM PLUS Fine Particle Filter: Reusing a valuable natural resource. Managing industrial use of water for manufacturing everyday products ranging from clothing to food and beverage is a significant challenge. To help companies overcome challenges in treating difficult water, Dow Water & Process Solutions introduced a disruptive filtration technology that gets the job done with water recovery rates up to 99 percent along with low maintenance. This not only helps industry reduce costs and waste, but also conserve water resources. A successful North America launch and growing demand drove the opening of a commercial-scale production facility in Menlo Park, Calif., in April 2013 and product launches into Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America in November 2013.

More Responsible Oil & Gas Recovery:
NEPTUNETM Subsea Insulation System: Accessing oil responsibly from extreme environments. Global energy needs are leading producers further offshore into deeper waters in search of recoverable oil reserves. In response to offshore operators requests for higher performance subsea flow assurance protection from the increasingly harsh conditions encountered in the offshore production landscape, Dow Oil, Gas and Mining introduced the NEPTUNE System, a full end-to-end subsea insulation system product that can be used in projects where oil temperatures can reach 160 degrees Celsius. The NEPTUNE System is also a winner of a World Oil Innovation Award.

Garnet 2.0/TERAFORCETM Resin Coated Sand Technology: Improving performance and sustainability in oil recovery. This novel solution is a collaborative effort between Dow Polyurethanes and Preferred Sands that improves oil productivity and the environmental profile of the hydraulic fracturing process. TERAFORCE Technology from Dow delivers energy-savings by utilizing short production cycles and low temperatures so that large volumes can be produced at a single production site. The technology also eliminates the need for an additional chemical that competing technologies require to be injected into the well.

The Dow products being honored in the 2014 R&D 100 Awards are aligned to five of Dow’s market-focused businesses: Dow Water & Process Solutions; Dow Oil, Gas & Mining; Dow Automotive Systems; Dow AgroSciences; and Dow Polyurethanes. The awards were announced on July 11, 2014 and will be presented at the 52nd annual R&D 100 Awards banquet on Nov. 7 in Las Vegas, NV.

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company is driving innovations that extract value from the intersection of chemical, physical and biological sciences to help address many of the world's most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, clean energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow's integrated, market-driven, industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 180 countries and in high growth sectors such as packaging, electronics, water, coatings and agriculture. In 2013, Dow had annual sales of more than $57 billion and employed approximately 53,000 people worldwide. The Company's more than 6,000 products are manufactured at 201 sites in 36 countries across the globe. References to "Dow" or the "Company" mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

About R&D Magazine

Since its founding in 1959 as Industrial Research, R&D Magazine has served research scientists, engineers and technical staff at laboratories around the world, providing timely, informative news and useful technical articles that broaden readers’ knowledge of the research and development industry and improve the quality of their work. R&D Magazine is a publication of Advantage Business Media (www.advantagebusiness.media.com).