Hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide HPPO

Fig. 14 Hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) process...

The world-scale plant, has a nameplate capacity of 390 kilotons per year (KTA) of PO via the hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) technology. For more information, visit www.dow.com. 

In 2008, BASF and Dow Chemical successfully started the first commercial production plant based on the novel hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide (HPPO) process. The plant is located in Antwerp, Belgium and the initial annual capacity is around 300 000 tons. A second plant based on this technology will start production in 2011 in Map Ta Phut, Thailand. 

CO is derived from a variety of feedstocks such as petroleum gas, fuel oil, coal, and biomass. The industrial scale production of PO starts from propylene, which is mainly obtained from crude oil. However, due to the high importance of this compound, many pathways from renewable sources have additionally been developed [54]. PP is converted to PO by either hydrochlorination or oxidation [55]. The use of chlorine leads to large amounts of salts as by-products, therefore oxidation methods are more important, such as the co-oxidation of PP using ethylbenzene or isobutene in the presence of air and a catalyst. However, this process is economically dependent on the market share of these by-products, thus new procedures without significant amounts of other side-products have been developed, such as the HPPO (hydrogen peroxide to propylene oxide) process in which propylene is oxidized with hydrogen peroxide to give PO and water [56, 57] (Fig. 14). 

In 2008, Dow and BASF successfully started up the first commercial-scale production plant based on the novel BASF/Dow-developed HPPO (hydrogen peroxide for propylene oxide) technology at BASF s Antwerp, Belgium, facility. A second plant based on this technology was scheduled to begin production in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, in 2011. The two companies reported that, compared with traditional technologies, the epoxidation with hydrogen peroxide has a very low environmental impact, a simpler process layout and reduced investment costs. 

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