NOVA Chemicals & BP to develop & commercialize NOVA Z-N catalysts

NOVA Chemicals Corporation says it has reached an agreement to jointly develop and commercialize NOVA Chemicals' Advanced Sclairtech Ziegler-Natta (Z-N) catalysts for BP's Innovene gas-phase polyethylene (PE) process. It had recently demonstrated its Novacat T catalyst technology in numerous commercial trials.

"Novacat T is a direct and superior replacement for conventional Z-N catalysts in commercial-scale, gas-phase production plants," says Daryll Harrison, director of NOVA Chemicals polyolefins research and development. This high activity catalyst facilitates the production of PE resins with narrow or broad molecular weight distributions and produces significant increases in reactor throughput with minimal retrofitting cost."

As an example, Novacat T will be able to provide improved super-hexene resins from better monomer incorporation that produces a less sticky resin. The robustness of the catalyst also increases its resistance to impurities, which extends the productivity of the catalyst.

According to Dan Boivin, president of NOVA Chemicals Olefins/Polyolefins business, "This technical collaboration is another key step in NOVA Chemicals' quest to become a technology player in the PE business. Our development of the next generation, Advanced Sclairtech solution process was a key undertaking that drove us to new catalyst developments. Not just Z-N Novacat T, but a whole series of single-site catalysts. We expect to be offering single-site-catalyst-based resins later this year and to make these catalysts available for gas-phase processes."

"We are planning to license the Advanced Sclairtech process with both its Advanced Z-N and single-site catalysts on a global basis," said Dave Purvis, general manager of licensing for NOVA Chemicals. "This process is a dual-reactor, solution process with superior environmental and process performance characteristics. NOVA Chemicals considers its process to be an excellent process platform for the application of advanced catalysts and the production of products
tailored to customer-specific requirements. The BP collaboration will facilitate market access for licensing Novacat T in gas-phase technology and we plan to apply and license NOVA Chemicals' family of catalysts to other PE-process platforms."

NOVA Chemicals is also actively involved in research and development for process and product development in its styrenic polymers business and is working on enhanced ethylene production technologies.