Manufacturing processes high-pressure LDPE

Discovery of Linear (High-Density) Polyethylene Use of Comonomers Linear Low-Density Polyethylene Stereospecific Polymerization Discovery of Polypropylene Manufacturing Processes High-Pressure LDPE Low-Pressure, Linear HOPE LLDPE... 

The matrix polymer morphology of a collection of LDPE foams manufactured from a high-pressure nitrogen solution process was analysed at different length scales. 

The first section of this chapter describes the most important high pressure process run under homogeneous conditions to manufacture Low Density PolyEthylene (LDPE). The radical polymerization of ethylene to LDPE is carried out in tubular reactors or in stirred autoclaves. Tubular reactors exhibit higher capacities than stirred autoclaves. The latter are preferred to produce ethylene copolymers having a higher comonomer content. 

It is expected that around 500,000 tons mPE will be manufactured in 2000 in Western Europe. Resins from high-pressure- as well as from low-pressure processes suffer more difficult processability. Their narrow molecular-weight distribution results in an unfavourable viscosity behaviour [8], As with linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), the viscosity of mPE is independent of the shear-rate over a wide range and reduces only at high shear-rates (Fig. 9.5-11). Therefore, energy consumption is high when mPE is processed with extruders which are designed for LDPE. 

The types of polyethylene can vary depending on the method of manufacture, the amount of comonomer and the type of comonomer, that is, whether hydrocarbon or polar. Polyethylene manufactured by the older high pressure process leads to the production of highly branched and long branched low density polyethylene (LDPE). With modem polymerization technology, which uses much lower pressures, polyethylenes are more linear in nature. They can be made with random short chain branches such as methyl, ethyl, butyl, and hexyl which arise from copolymerization... 

A density-based method has been introduced for polyethylene classification relying on ASTM-standards (Table 2.2). The density-based classification coincides to some extent with that based on the polymerisation processes. Consequently, polyethylene with low density (LDPE) is usually a polyethylene material produced by high-pressure polymerisation and polyethylene with high density (HDPE) is a polyethylene material manufactured by low-pressure polymerisation. Since the end of the 1970s co-... 

---