New, effective polyethylene production process

Polyethylene copolymerisations in single reactor by using Ziegler-Natta catalyst have been done. Novel "Dense Gas" reactor conditions have been evaluated as a suspension medium and compared to existing slurry, supercritical and gas phase polymerisations. 1-Octene has been used as a comonomer to be able to evaluate the potential for the novel method to use heavier comonomers (= higher boiling point) in low pressure and low temperature polymerisations. Good polymerisation results have been obtained by using the novel "Dense Gas" reactor conditions, showing high comonomer Conversion and thus enabling the use of 1-octene in the 'slurry' type process. Comparison with the existing polymerisation methods have been done.

A new and better process for production of bimodal polyethylene is to be developed that is to be more flexible, have lower costs and give better products than existing processes. The key element is using a more favourable setup of polymerisation reactor s and polymerisation conditions than existing processes. The basics and critical issues will be studied in Norners advanced bench scale reactors (which Norner uses for R&D for e.g. polyolefin producers) and via modelling. The results will be used to secu re IP rights and partner(s) for further development/upscaling of the process to commercial scale, optionally to be combined with other technology elements of Norner, and then to earn royalties.