With a light show rivaling its Aurora Borealis namesake and an array of musicians and entertainers, this was hardly your typical plant inauguration.

The fanfare surrounding the Sept. 10 plant inauguration at the Burg-hausen site of material supplier Borealis (Vienna, Austria) was certainly out of the ordinary, but the recent process and material advancements made by the company could be considered cause for celebration.

The €640 million investment in the Burghausen refinery is said to make the facility the third-largest polypropylene (PP) and ninth-largest polyolefin site in Europe, and it more than doubles the proprietary second-generation Borstar PP capacity to 570,000 tonnes per year. In this process, an emulsion-based catalyst enables precise molecular tailoring of extremely pure grades of PP, at a reported energy consumption savings of 5-10% per tonne.

"Borstar PP 2G technology is enabling Borealis to produce new advanced materials, which are now beginning to be introduced into the market," says Lorenzo Delorenzi, Borealis executive VP of polyolefins. "The Burghausen plant will strengthen our ability to provide an ever-widening range of cutting-edge plastic packaging solutions with a powerful combination of properties."

Among these materials is PP block copolymer Bormod BJ368MO, introduced at K 2007, which has been allowing packaging molders to cut part weight and processing time due to the grade's faster and finer crystallization.

Needless to say, the event seemed to impress the 1000 or so guests, including our plasticstoday.com colleague, leaving us eager to see the new developments coming from Borealis in the future.—[email protected]

Borealis AG | www.borealisgroup.com