Improving the level of polyethylene production technology in China - remember the key breakthroughs and industrial application projects of multifunctional gas-phase polyethylene titanium-based catalysts

For a long time, gas-phase polyethylene catalysts mainly rely on imports, which limits the high-quality development
of China's polyethylene industry.
The project "Key Breakthrough and Industrial Application of Multifunctional Gas-phase Polyethylene Titanium-based Catalysts" completed by China Petroleum and Petrochemical Research Institute developed the production technology of gas-phase polyethylene-based titanium-based catalysts, improved the comprehensive performance of catalysts, and realized industrial application
in multiple sets of domestic production equipment.
The project recently won the second prize of scientific and technological progress of the Chinese Chemical Industry Society
.

In recent years, with the rapid growth of demand for polyolefin materials, China's polyethylene production has achieved leapfrog development, and dozens of sets of gas-phase fluidized bed polyethylene production plants have been built, with an annual production capacity of more than 10 million tons
.
China is a big producer of polyethylene, but the catalysts required for polyethylene production have long relied on imports, which has affected the high-quality development
of China's polyethylene industry.
Therefore, it is of great significance
to overcome the production technology of gas-phase polyethylene catalyst, develop high-performance catalysts, and meet the development of new gas-phase polyethylene products to comprehensively improve the production technology level of polyethylene in China.

The production of polyethylene catalysts involves catalytic material science, structural chemistry, organic chemistry, industrial catalysis, process control and other technical fields, with the characteristics of multidisciplinary, interpenetration and cross-application, complex production process and high technical
difficulty.
In order to pursue high profits and maintain a monopoly position in technology, foreign patentees have carried out a strict technical blockade of China's polyethylene catalysts and set up many patent obstacles
.
This has also led to the research and development of domestic polyethylene catalysts has not been satisfactory, especially in the production and application of slurry-fed polyethylene catalysts, China still has a large technical gap
with foreign countries.

In view of the dilemma of the domestic polyethylene industry, the scientific research team of China Petroleum and Petrochemical Research Institute has overcome a series of technical problems
such as catalyst molding, hydrogen blending and copolymerization performance improvement, localization substitution of key raw materials, and production stability control on the basis of the first generation of dry powder fed polyethylene catalyst 。 Finally, the scientific research team developed multi-functional electrons for the preparation of ethylene vapor polymerization catalysts by innovating ethylene vapor polymerization Ziegler-Natta catalyst to electrons, forming the production technology of gas-phase polyethylene slurry PGE-101 catalyst, which solved the problem of contradiction between the catalytic activity of general gas-phase polyethylene catalyst and the bulk density of polyethylene products, greatly improved the comprehensive performance of catalyst, and filled a number of domestic technology gaps
.

The catalyst independently developed by the project team has been successfully applied to multiple sets of gas-phase polyethylene plants such as Daqing Petrochemical's 300,000 tons/year full-density polyethylene and Jilin Petrochemical's 278,000-ton/year linear low-density polyethylene after
small-scale, pilot and industrial trial production.
Industrial application data show that the catalyst has the characteristics of high catalytic activity, strong hydrogen modulation response ability and good copolymerization performance, and the polyethylene products produced have high bulk density, uniform particle size distribution and low
fine powder content.

In 2021, the project passed the appraisal of scientific and technological achievements of the China Petroleum Organization and was considered to have reached the international advanced level of the overall technology, and the performance indicators ranked the leading level
in China.
Up to now, the project results have been authorized 14 patents, identified 2 enterprise technical secrets, and formulated 1 product standard
.

The successful industrialization of multifunctional gas-phase polyethylene titanium catalysts not only realizes the domestic substitution of imported catalysts, but also meets the large demand for domestic polyolefin industry products, promotes the development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, food packaging industry and other related industries, and promotes the optimization and upgrading
of polyolefin industry.