1930 Davison purchases Silica Gel Corporation and begins to find new uses for silica gel, including air drying, refrigeration and packaging desiccants. Leopold Ruzicka and Adolph Butenandt use Raney nickel catalysts in synthesizing male sex hormones from cholesterol, winning the Nobel prize in chemistry for their discovery. Davison ships world's first synthetic fluid cracking catalysts for petroleum refining to the world's first commercial fluid cracking catalyst unit in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 1947 Davison establishes the industry's first technical services facility for fluid cracking catalyts. Davison opens the Lake Charles, Louisiana plant for fluid cracking catalysts.
Grace opens offices in Brazil.
Cryovac expands into Germany. 1957 Davison opens its first plant in Canada in Valleyfield, Quebec. 1958 Grace builds its Washington Research Center, the largest industrial chemicals research center in Maryland. Grace opens offices in New Zealand. 1959 Grace opens offices in Mexico.