Eastman Polymer Helps Keep Iron Man Alive

Tony Stark watches his BPA intake.

Though slowly dying of palladium poisoning from his Arc Reactor heart, entrepreneurial playboy and instrument of world peace Tony Stark does not mess around with endocrine-disrupting chemicals. In the recently released (and completely awesome) Iron Man 2, Stark is forced to suck down detoxifying chlorophyll to keep palladium levels in his blood below lethal limits. His bottle of choice for consuming 80 ounces a day of disgusting green liquid is made from Eastman's Tritan copolyester, a BPA-free polymer the company developed to compete with polycarbonate.

The bottle was manufactured by Kor, a California-based producer of "sustainable hydration vessels" (translation: expensive water bottles) and one of the first adopters of Tritan.

Though the gratis product placement is most likely attributable to the bottle's sleek design,  Eastman president and CEO Jim Rogers took the opportunity to draw parallels between Iron Man and Tritan's product attributes  by suggesting the third-generation suit should be made from Tritan.

"We've always been attracted to that market," joked Mark Costa, executive v.p./specialty polymers, coatings, and adhesives and chief marketing officer at Eastman at the recent opening of the company's new 30,000 m.t./year Tritan production plant at Kingsport, TN. "It's a high-growth market."