3M (originally the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) is an American multinational conglomerate operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, healthcare, and consumer goods. The company produces over 60,000 products under several brands, including adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, personal protective equipment, window films, paint protection films, dental and orthodontic products, electrical and electronic connecting and insulating materials, medical products, car-care products, electronic circuits, healthcare software, and optical films. It is based in Maplewood, a suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota.
3M made 35.4billionintotalsalesin2021,andrankednumber102intheFortune500listofthelargestUnitedStatescorporationsbytotalrevenue.,thecompanyhadapproximately95,000employeesandoperationsinmorethan70countries.Thereareafewinternationalsubsidiariessuchas3MIndia,3MJapan,and3MCanada.InJune2023,3Mreachedasettlementtopaymorethan10 billion to US public water systems to resolve claims over the company's contamination of water with PFASs (so-called "forever chemicals").
Five businessmen founded the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company as a mining venture in Two Harbors, Minnesota, making their first sale on June 13, 1902. The goal was to mine corundum, but this failed because the mine's mineral holdings were anorthosite, which had no commercial value. Co-founder John Dwan solicited funds in exchange for stock and Edgar Ober and Lucius Ordway took over the company in 1905. The company moved to Duluth and began researching and producing sandpaper products. William L. McKnight, later a key executive, joined the company in 1907, and A. G. Bush joined in 1909. 3M finally became financially stable in 1916 and was able to pay dividends.
The company moved to Saint Paul in 1910, where it remained for 52 years before outgrowing the campus and moving to its current headquarters at 3M Center in Maplewood, Minnesota, in 1962.
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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS or PFASs) are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain. An early definition, from 2011, required that they contain at least one perfluoroalkyl moiety, –CnF2n+1–. Beginning in 2021, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) expanded their terminology, stating that "PFASs are defined as fluorinated substances that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom (without any H/Cl/Br/I atom attached to it), i.
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Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) (conjugate base perfluorooctanesulfonate) is a chemical compound having an eight-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group and thus a perfluorosulfonic acid. It is an anthropogenic (man-made) fluorosurfactant, now regarded as a global pollutant. PFOS was the key ingredient in Scotchgard, a fabric protector made by 3M, and related stain repellents. The acronym "PFOS" refers to the parent sulfonic acid and to various salts of perfluorooctanesulfonate.