Pennakem provides full service-manufacturing, pilot facilities, R&D, and worldwide sales and marketing, all focusing on renewable chemistry while developing new and innovative products and processes for customers. The original production facilities in Memphis, Tennessee USA were built by the US Government in 1943 and operated by Quaker Oats. Corn cobs and other biomass materials were collected from the surrounding farms and used as the feedstock to prepare furfural. Furfural was a key raw material used to for the rubber and nylon industries in support of the war effort. Over the next forty years, Quaker Oats owned and operated this facility and multiple locations in Nebraska, Florida, Texas and Belgium, expanding the product line to other furfural-derived products such as furan, furfuryl alcohol, and tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol. In 1983, Quaker Oats spun off the facility as QO Chemicals. Two years later, the facility was sold to Great Lakes Chemical.