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Aug 27th, 2008                                Print this article

LyondellBasell launches specialty PO technology

By Robert Colvin

Who says autoclave technology is old hat? Clearly not LyondellBasell Industries (Rotterdam, Netherlands), which just has launched an improved Lupotech A system that is an autoclave production method to make specialty grades of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymers. The high-pressure system, the original means of producing polyethylene dating from the 1930s, is cooked up in a strong steel vessel under very high pressure. Many market observers in the last decade have often pooh-poohed the thought of new autoclaves being built because they are reportedly too energy intensive and dangerous.

But LyondellBasell says it has optimized the process, which produces a number of LDPE extrusion-coating grades to also produce advanced products with demanding processing requirements such as adhesives and sealants with vinyl acetate content >40%. “Products from the Lupotech A process complement the LDPE and EVA portfolio covered by the leading tubular process, Lupotech T (Ed. Note: also a LyondellBasell technology),” says Kaspar Evertz, the company’s senior VP Licensing. “We are excited that we have been able to extend our portfolio of polyolefin (PO) technologies for license to the global markets.”

According to Evertz, the company’s autoclave design has been optimized with multiple zones, an injection method for both monomers and initiators, a special pressure and temperature profile control, and a new agitation system that allows for high conversion rates. Capacity of autoclave-produced polymer using LyondellBasell’s existing Lupotech A method either by the company or its licensees is 1.4 million tonnes from 44 reactors.

In other news from the company, it is just licensed its PE and polypropylene (PP) technologies for three plants being built in Kazakhstan with a combined nameplate capacity of 1.3 million tonnes/yr. The facility for Kazakhstan Petrochemical Industries in Karabatan is scheduled to start up in 2013. Neither a 400,000 tonnes/yr LLDPE/HDPE swing plant nor a 400,000 tonnes/yr LDPE facility at the site uses the company’s autoclave technology but instead gas phase and tubular reactors respectively.—bcolvin@modplas.com

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