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Tomskneftekhim Commissions Russia’s First Titanomagnesium Catalyst Unit Tomskneftekhim has become the first plant in Russia to produce titanomagnesium catalyst (TMC). The new catalyst outperforms the catalytic systems traditionally used by polypropylene plants on a whole range of parameters. Tomskneftekhim has built and commissioned a pilot installation for the production of titanomagnesium catalyst. The project was part of a national scientific and technical programme entitled “Development and Creation of a Technological Base for the Structural Modernization of Large-tonnage Polyolefin Production in Russia” and was implemented jointly with the Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science. In the near future the unit will be handed over by Tomskneftekhim to Sibur-Tomskneftekhim LLC scientific research organization (NIOST). The newly commissioned unit has already produced three pilot batches of the carrier required to manufacture the catalyst. Company specialists plan to produce the titanomagnesium catalyst itself by 30 June. The plant’s managing company, LLC SIBUR, has approved industrial tests of an experimental batch of TMC in the polypropylene unit before the start of the 2008 shut-down maintenance work. Laboratory studies are currently underway in Tomskneftekhim scientific and technical centre to devise optimal polymerization conditions using this catalyst, while installation work continues on the equipment needed to feed the new catalyst into the polymerization reactors. TMC is a complex hi-tech product which is manufactured by a limited group of companies mostly with proprietary polyolefin production technologies, such as BASELL, Dow, Univation and Mitsui. Using TMC it is possible to produce up to 40 kilograms of polypropylene per gram of catalyst, compared to only 4.5 km using traditional catalysts (based on trichloride titanium). “Using titanomagnesium catalysts will not only help to reduce the company’s energy consumption, but also help develop modern technologies for manufacturing or various grades of polypropylene with high added value, in particular, new film grades, as well as static copolymer and block copolymer of propylene with ethylene”, says Eduard Mayer, research adviser to the General Director. The few traditional polypropylene plants that use the suspension polymerization method similar to that used at Tomsk are gradually introducing TMC (both in Russia and abroad). Worldwide, over 95% of all polypropylene is produced using TMC, but before this new unit at Tomskneftekhim TMC had never been produced in Russia. Russian petrochemicals plants currently import the catalyst, which means that polymer manufacturers are dependent on market conditions in the West. This is why SIBUR was keen to begin manufacturing the titanomagnesium catalysts at its Tomsk site. |
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