The Catalyst Review July 2024 - 7

SPECIAL FEATURE
$40B in capital investment over this decade to be increased to a total of over $90B up to 2040 (Peng 2022). This would
substantially reduce the amount of oil required to cover global plastics demand, with projections suggesting oil demand running
30% lower than a business-as-usual scenario. Forecasts project that the rate of virgin fossil polymer production may start declining
by 2040, although this rate will be affected by population growth. Keeping plastic in circulation will require sweeping changes at
all points in the plastic chain. In 2020 single-use plastic was phasing-out in certain regions of the world, based on new regulations.
Plastic waste recycling has the potential to transform the chemical industry. We would like to underscore the repositioning of the
industry.
Over the past two decades, the petrochemical industry has seen a major part of its profitability growth come from accessing
advantaged feedstock. Assuming the scenario conditions can be met, the ability to access and handle plastics waste would be
a comparable key to success in the future, with plastics waste potentially becoming the next source of feedstock advantage for
polymer production. However, for polymer resins in the global marketplace, we are currently seeing numerous new factors, due
to the pandemic and Ukraine war consequences and other issues that are affecting/struggling activities and plans in the polymer
and end user industries:
● Increasingly demanding regulatory environments and a growing practice of ESG drivers
● High interest rates, inflation and an ongoing risk of economic recession
● Shifting patterns of supply/demand and critical material supply shortages driven
● Consolidation/ownership changes
The polymer market, on a global basis, is evaluated to have an average annual growth rate at 3.4% across the major polymer resins
from 2023 to 2029. Specifically, polyolefins (PO), including PE (HDPE, LLDPE and LDPE) and PP, represent about half of entire
global polymer demand and their global annual growth rate is evaluated at about 4.0% from 2023 to 2029 (TCGR 2023).
The polyolefin industry is intensely competitive in terms of basic plant costs. Producers strive to shave their manufacturing
costs by increasing reactor productivity, increasing plant availability and debottlenecking it to the limits of process equipment.
There are limits to cost reduction through gains in efficiency, so producers also strive to differentiate their products in terms of
performance to match market needs. Differentiated products achieve higher margins leading to higher profitability and greater
competitive strength. The virtuous circle of competitive strength, growth and profitability is driven by innovation in products, in
processes and particularly in catalysts. In effect, any improvement in each of these fields affects positively the other ones and
determines a virtuous circle of innovative improvements. Technology transfer is the process of getting knowledge and discoveries
from the laboratory to the public. In the case of chemical materials as in polyolefins this is done by private sector involvement
to transform these discoveries into products and services for the market. In large chemical and biological process companies
there exists a vertical integration of activities from R&D to commercial implementation and operation of diverse processes, the
technical knowledge to move a process innovation efficiently through the development and scale-up pathway, which are part of
commercialization efforts. In the chemical and biological process innovation area, these steps can be described as:
● An innovation idea is generated and stated. This is the start of the Idea Phase. Experimental work and proof of the
innovation is completed using chemistry and applied chemistry.
● An integrated process concept for the innovation is proposed and investigated at a high level. This forms part of the Benchscale
Engineering Phase. The innovation is analyzed, within the proposed integrated process concept, through a detailed
techno-economic assessment (TEA), and further bench-work is completed to de-risk some of the technical challenges
identified through the TEA.
● Integrated larger experimental set-ups experimentally validate the process. This is the start of the Pilot Plant Phase.
Process validation and completion of technical de-risking is done in larger pilot plants.
● R&D results and data are translated into a complete engineering process design package. First demonstration plant for the
technology is commissioned. We are now in the Demonstration Plant Phase.
● First commercial plant is commissioned. This is the start of the Commercial Plant Phase. The technology has successfully
penetrated the market.
The different development phases are sometimes referred to as discovery, concept, feasibility, development, implementation
and deployment phases. A very important point to make is that when it comes to the development and scale-up of process
technologies, poor technical knowledge on what it takes to move a technology through the development and scale-up pathway
can be financially very costly (Beretta 2021). During all these phases, a key success factor is the collaboration between different
R&D experts, in particular the catalyst, process, pilot and engineering groups which must work very closely with the product
development group. All the key polyolefins inventions and discoveries are based on breakthroughs where catalyst usually plays a
major role. High throughput experimentation (HTE) techniques have been broadly adopted by the industry, dramatically increasing
The Catalyst Review
July 2024
7

The Catalyst Review July 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Catalyst Review July 2024