One step closer to PO
8 Oct 2002
The Lyondell Chemical Company is building an integrated pilot plant to further develop its proprietary one-step, direct oxidation propylene oxide (PO) technology.
The pilot plant will be built at Lyondell's Technology Centre in Newtown Square, PA and will be the final demonstration of the technology before commercialisation.
'We have been working for many years on a technology that will produce PO in one step without requiring an auxiliary feedstock facility, such as a hydrogen peroxide plant. The added benefit of our technology is that it produces PO without a co-product such as styrene or tertiary butyl alcohol,' said Ed Dineen, Lyondell senior vice president of chemicals and polymers. 'Now that our extensive testing of the lab-scale process is complete, we are ready to pilot the process on a much larger scale.'
Currently, the three leading commercial methods of PO production are the propylene oxide/styrene monomer (POSM) process, the propylene oxide/t-butyl alcohol (PO/TBA) process (both invented by Lyondell), and the chlorohydrin process. All three of these processes require greater capital investment to build a plant than the direct oxidation technology, according to the company.
Lyondell also is building a new POSM plant in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, scheduled for start-up in 2003. It is the 11th PO plant built by Lyondell, and will be jointly owned by Lyondell and Bayer.
