Gelest may be an expert in the manufacturing of silanes and silicones, but it is far from a "sili" company. Founded in 1990, Gelest supplies silicone, tin, and germanium compounds to both the commercial and research markets. Product applications include adhesives, ceramics, coatings, composites, metallization, and superconductors, as well as synthesis and organic chemistry processes. Gelest offers about 2,000 different materials in gram to commercial quantities. It is expanding into a more extensive offering of other metal-organics, particularly metal alkoxides and diketonates. Gelest has distributorships throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, allowing the company to reach an international client base.

Faultless Starch/Bon Ami aims to keep you crisp, clean, and nicely scented. The company's product lines include the market-leading Faultless and Magic Sizing brand laundry starches, Bon Ami cleaners, Kleen King metal cleaners, the Garden Weasel and WeedPopper garden tools, and Trapp room sprays and candles. It also produces a line of starches and chemicals for the commercial laundry market. Although once in decline, the Bon Ami product line has enjoyed a rise in popularity as an environmentally friendly cleaner, while starch is on the rebound with the return of cotton in garments. Faultless Starch/Bon Ami has been owned and operated by the founding Beaham family since 1887.

Stripping is OK at Spraylat. Founded in 1936, Spraylat makes more than 100 strippable coatings used to protect a variety of surfaces from dust, heat, and even environmental hazards. The company makes liquid and powder coatings, as well as coatings for signs, wheels, and electronics. Its Hilemn business segment makes coatings for mirrors. Customers include the aerospace, automotive, electronics, and general manufacturing industries -- primarily in the US, but also in Asia and Europe. Chairman James Borner and his family control the company. Spraylat expanded its global reach in 2008 when it formed Automotive Coatings World Alliance with two paint companies, Japan's Ohashi Chemical and France's Mader Group.

Napier Environmental Technologies, named for a grass, works to green up the chemical industry. The company manufactures wood treatments, water-based strippers, and paint removal products designed to do less damage to the environment than their traditional counterparts. Products such as Bio-Wash, Concrete Safe Etch, Citri-Safe Cleaner, and the RemovALL line are made for consumer (about 55% of sales) and industrial markets. Napier's compounds also clean airplanes, remove graffiti, and harden waste paint. Paint manufacturer Sico had agreed to buy Napier's assets in 2005 but subsequently withdrew the offer. Napier filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005 but emerged later that year.

Martin Marietta Magnesia Specialties works the dynamics of dolomite and magnesium. A subsidiary of Martin Marietta Materials, the company manufactures and sells dolomitic lime and magnesia-based chemicals to customers in the industrial, agricultural, and environmental sectors. Magnesia Specialties' dolomitic lime products are primarily sold to customers in the steel industry. The firm's chemicals segment includes products used for animal feed, flame retardant, wastewater treatment, and paper production purposes. The company has manufacturing facilities in Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Through its subsidiaries, Thai Rubber Latex Corporation makes latex concentrate, as well as various finished products made from that concentrate. More than half of the company's revenue is derived from its manufacturing of latex concentrate, the major raw material used in the manufacture of rubber and latex products including gloves, condoms, and rubber thread. The company also manufactures latex gloves and rubber thread from its majority-owned subsidiaries Universal Latex Products and World Flex. Thai rubber Latex operates nine manufacturing facilities.

The Pigments for Paper business group produces kaolin, ground calcium carbonate (GCC) and precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC), mineral components that are essential for the paper industry. These products -- white pigments -- are essential mineral components, as they improve the physical characteristics of finished products and help to reduce their production cost. White pigments offer a wide variety of qualities in terms of gloss, brightness, opacity or viscosity.The great diversity of its products allows the business group to provide multi-pigment solutions in response to its customers’ specific needs. It offers the world’s broadest range of pigments targeted for paper industry application.

Avecia has become dependent on pharmaceuticals, and it doesn't want to kick the habit. After much pruning, the specialty and fine chemicals maker has two main segments: oligomedicines and biologics. The biologics unit, based in the UK, develops microbial and human therapeutic proteins. The other business segment provides oligonucleotide products for all stages of production: pre-clinical, clinical, and post launch. This oligomedicines unit is headquartered in Massachusetts. In the latter half of the decade the company began a reorganization that involved selling off its chemicals unit that made products for laser printers and copiers and intermediates for pharmaceuticals and agricultural chemicals.

HELM is in control of its own ship. A marketer and distributor of chemicals, the company's products include fertilizers, insecticides, additives, pharmaceuticals, animal and human nutrients, and plastics. Founded at the turn of the last century and based in Germany -- with about 60% of its sales coming from Europe -- HELM has operations in more than 30 countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

Austin Powder has the original boom box. The company was founded in 1833 to manufacture black powder used to blast rocks, mine coal, create canals, and generally move mountains. Today Austin Powder's commercial explosives are used primarily for construction, mining, quarrying, and seismic exploration. Products include detonating cord, detonator-sensitive emulsions, cast boosters, and high-explosive emulsions. It also makes electric and non-electric detonators. Austin International, through joint ventures and partnerships, provides explosives for projects outside the US, mostly in other parts of the Americas. The company distributes in the US and Canada through 65 company-owned stores.

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