Chevron Phillips sees future in new bimodal product range

Zürich — Polymer producer Chevron Philips Chemical Co. (Kingwood, TX) has developed a bimodal polyethylene (PE) produced with both chrome and dual metallocene catalysts for a specialty material that is made in a single slurry loop reactor. According to Randy L. Hagenson, licensing manager, speaking at the recent PEPP 2007 conference conducted by Maack Business Services (Au, Switzerland), by producing the PE using this method, it can be better tailored for properties of PE100 used for pressure-pipe applications. The technology also produces a PE100+ material that offers improved properties compared to traditional PE100 grades, he says. This material offers very high abrasion resistance for such applications as mining operations as well as low slump when extruding large-sized PE pipe diameters.

Univation Technologies (Houston, TX) reported last year its Prodigy BMC100 bimodal high-density PE material for films, also produced in a single reactor but in a gas-phase Unipol reactor, was set to go commercial. “We believe that bimodal catalyst technology will be an exciting competitive advantage due to the economic value and the fact that HDPE films show an excellent balance of processability and physical properties,” says Gregory Stakem, VP R&D at this resin producer. The material reportedly has good tear, impact, and stiffness properties, the ability to drawdown, low gel content, and good heat-sealing features. Another point claimed is good bubble stability to limit gauge variation.—[email protected]