Alexander H. Tullo

C&EN’s award-winning podcast Inflection Point leans on our 100-year archive to trace headline topics in science today back to their disparate and surprising roots. In each episode, we explore three lesser-known moments in science history that ultimately led us to current-day breakthroughs. With help from expert C&EN reporters, this show examines how discoveries from our past have shaped our present and will change our future.

In a deal that will combine the world’s largest chlorine producer with a big chlorine consumer, Olin and Huntsman have agreed to a merger of equals. The result will be a massive and diversified US chemical company with about $12.5 billion in annual sales. Olin, incorporated in 1892, is one of the oldest names in the chemical industry. It posted $6.8 billion in sales in 2025.

Under pressure from activists and state environmental authorities, Freepoint Eco-Systems has suspended operations at its new plastics pyrolysis plant in Hebron, Ohio. The Hebron plant is one of the largest of its kind in the US. It has the capacity to break down 80,000 metric tons (t) of plastics waste per year into pyrolysis oil, a hydrocarbon liquid that that refineries and chemical plants can process back into new plastics.