Polyethylene world production

Anhydrous HF was first produced commercially in the USA in 1931 and in the UK from about 1942. By 1992 some eighteen countries were each producing at least 3000 tonnes pa with North America accounting for some 330000 tonnes of the estimated annual world production of about 875 000 tormes, A further 205 000 tonnes was used captively for production of AIF3. Price in 1990 was about l.50/kg for the anhydrous acid and somewhat less for 70% acid. The primary suppliers ship HF in tank-cars of 20-91-tonne capacity and the product is also repackaged in steel cylinders holding 8.0-900 kg (2.7-635 kg in the UK). Lecture bottles contain 340 g HF. The 70% acid is shipped in tank-cars of 32-80-tonne capacity, tank trucks of 20-tonne capacity, and in polyethylene-lined drums holding 114 or 208 I,... 

Current world production of ethylene glycol is approximately 15 billion pounds. Most of that is used for producing polyethylene terephtha-late (PET) resins (for fiber, film, bottles), antifreeze, and other products. Approximately 50% of the world EG was consumed in the manufacture of polyester fibers and another 25% went into the antifreeze. 

Polyethylene is the most extensively used thermoplastic. The ever-increasing demand for polyethylene is partly due to the availability of the monomer from abundant raw materials (associated gas, LPG, naphtha). Other factors are its relatively low cost, ease of processing the polymer, resistance to chemicals, and its flexibility. World production of all polyethylene grades, approximately 100 billion pounds in 1997, is predicted... 

Oxidation is the first step for producing molecules with a very wide range of functional groups because oxygenated compounds are precursors to many other products. For example, alcohols may be converted to ethers, esters, alkenes, and, via nucleophilic substitution, to halogenated or amine products. Ketones and aldehydes may be used in condensation reactions to form new C-C double bonds, epoxides may be ring opened to form diols and polymers, and, finally, carboxylic acids are routinely converted to esters, amides, acid chlorides and acid anhydrides. Oxidation reactions are some of the largest scale industrial processes in synthetic chemistry, and the production of alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, epoxides and carboxylic acids is performed on a mammoth scale. For example, world production of ethylene oxide is estimated at 58 million tonnes, 2 million tonnes of adipic acid are made, mainly as a precursor in the synthesis of nylons, and 8 million tonnes of terephthalic acid are produced each year, mainly for the production of polyethylene terephthalate) [1]. 

Nowadays, the leading two polyolefin companies are producing more than 20 million metric tons of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) annually. This is about 35% of the world production of all POs. The demand for high impact polypropylene HIPP, and linear low density polyethylene, LLDPE, especially (see Fig. 5.4-2) is permanently growing at about 7% per year. "Distance holders", such as the methyl groups and the butene branch shown in Fig. 5.4-2, help to control the degree of crystallinity, and consequently the processability. 

Taking a different course than Algeria with its liquefied natural gas, the Gulf States have thus upgraded their natural resources and already account for 10 percent, 5 percent, and 4 percent of world production of methanol, ethylene, and polyethylene respectively. 

Ziegler-Natta catalysts are widely used in the production of high-density and linear low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LLDPE). More than half the world production of HDPE and over 90%o of LLDPE is based on Ziegler-Natta catalysts, although increased use of metallocene and other single-site catalysts is expected throughout the next decade. 

World consumers used 215 billion lb of the five most commonly used plastics in 1996.119 This included 41% polyethylene, 23% polyvinyl chloride, 21% polypropylene, 11% polystyrene, and 4% styrene-acrylonitrile copolymers. The world production of polyethylene tereph-thalate in 1996 was 9.8 billion lb. The United States plastics use in 1995 was 71.2 billion lb, of which 27% was used... 

The most important application of nylons is as fibers, which account for nearly 90% of the world production of all nylons. Virtually all of the rest is used for plastic applications. Because of their high cost, they have not become general-purpose materials, such as polyethylene and polystyrene, which are available at about one-third the price of nylons. Nylons have nevertheless found steadily increasing application as plastics materials for specialty purposes where the combination of toughness, rigidity, abrasion resistance, reasonable heat resistance, and gasoline resistance is important. 

The first polymer, shown in Figure 6.3a, is polyethylene (PE). When PE contains - 500 monomers, it is used for common plastic bags. Around 10,000 monomers create a rigid plastic, which is used for other purposes. The world production of PE has reached 10 million tons a year and is getting higher. 

Starch. Starch, thermoplastic (qv) (41,42) is a major agricultural commodity and, by far, the most inexpensive commercial biopoljuner it is the only biopolymer that is competitive with polyethylene in price. Annual world production, over 32 million metric tons, is from corn (maize), potatoes, rice, tapioca (cassava), barley, wheat, and other crops. Approximately 16 million metric tons are produced in the United States each year, mainly by extraction from corn but also from potatoes, wheat, and other sources. 

The polyethylene process was developed by F.J. Karol and his colleagues at Union Carbide Corporation the polypropylene process was developed jointly with the Shell Chemical Company. The development of the ethylene process started in the mid-1960s the propylene process was first commercialized in 1983. Eleven licenses were signed with Chinese companies between 2006 and 2012. Nearly 25% of world production of polyethylene was made by this process in 2012. Nearly 100 reactor lines in use in 25 countries produced more than 18 million tons of polyethylene in 2012. 

The world production of polymers is about 260 million tons per year and half of the production is made of polyolefins (induding low-density polyethylene, high-density... 

The variety of synthetic polymers discovered by Staudinger is impressive, and a number of today s polymeric substances were prepared for the first time by this outstanding scientist. His work soon attracted the keen interest and attention of the chemical industry, and as soon as 1933 the ICI company obtained a grade of polyethylene whose world production is still several tens of million tons per annum. A little later (1938), and after some failures in the field of polyesters, scientists... 

High density polyethylene (HDPE) is defined by ASTM D1248-84 as a product of ethylene polymerisation with a density of 0.940 g/cm or higher. This range includes both homopolymers of ethylene and its copolymers with small amounts of a-olefins. The first commercial processes for HDPE manufacture were developed in the early 1950s and utilised a variety of transition-metal polymerisation catalysts based on molybdenum (1), chromium (2,3), and titanium (4). Commercial production of HDPE was started in 1956 in the United States by Phillips Petroleum Company and in Europe by Hoechst (5). HDPE is one of the largest volume commodity plastics produced in the world, with a worldwide capacity in 1994 of over 14 x 10 t/yr and a 32% share of the total polyethylene production. 

Countries produciug commodity LLDPE and their capacities, as well as production volumes of some U.S. companies, are Hsted iu Table 5. Iu most cases, an accurate estimate of the total LLDPE production capacity is compHcated by the fact that a large number of plants are used, iu turn, for the manufacture of either HDPE or LLDPE iu the same reactors. VLDPE and LLDPE resius with a uniform branching distribution were initially produced in the United States by Exxon Chemical Company and Dow Chemical Company. However, since several other companies around the world have also aimounced their entry into this market, the worldwide capacity of uniformly branched LLDPE resins in 1995 is expected to reach a million tons. Special grades of LLDPE resins with broad MWD are produced by Phillips Petroleum Co. under the trade name Low Density Linear Polyethylenes or LDLPE. 

Styrene—butadiene elastomers, emulsion and solution types combined, are reported to be the largest-volume synthetic mbber, with 28.7% of the world consumption of all synthetic mbber in 1994 (38). This percentage has decreased steadily since 1973 when SBR s market share was 57% (39). The decline has been attributed to the switch to radial tires (longer milage) and the growth of other synthetic polymers, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester, and polystyrene. Since 1985, production of SBR has been flat (Table 3). 

Union Carbide Corp. also uses a siUca-supported chromium catalyst in their extremely low cost Unipol gas-phase linear low density ethylene copolymer process, which revolutionized the industry when it was introduced in 1977 (86—88). The productivity of this catalyst is 10 —10 kg polymer/kg transition metal contained in the catalyst. By 1990, the capacity of Unipol linear low density polyethylene reactors was sufficient to supply 25% of the world s total demand for polyethylene. 

United States production of ethylene oxide in 1990 was 2.86 x 10 metric tons. Approximately 16% of the United States ethylene (qv) production is consumed in ethylene oxidation, making ethylene oxide the second largest derivative of ethylene, surpassed only by polyethylene (see Olefin polymers). World ethylene oxide capacity is estimated by country in Table 11. Total world capacity in 1992 was ca 9.6 x 10 metric tons. 

By the mid-1990s capacity for polyethylene production was about 50 000 000 t.p.a, much greater than for any other type of plastics material. Of this capacity about 40% was for HDPE, 36% for LDPE and about 24% for LLDPE. Since then considerable extra capacity has been or is in the course of being built but at the time of writing financial and economic problems around the world make an accurate assessment of effective capacity both difficult and academic. It is, however, appeirent that the capacity data above is not reflected in consumption of the three main types of material where usage of LLDPE is now of the same order as the other two materials. Some 75% of the HDPE and LLDPE produced is used for film applications and about 60% of HDPE for injection and blow moulding. 

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