DUSSELDORF, GERMANY - Union Carbide Corp. plans to market commercial quantities of metallocene technology-based polyethylene products this year, while also launching the licensing of its proprietary metallocene catalyst technology and a line of ethylene-propylene rubber products. In a March 6 presentation at Metallocenes '96 in Dusseldorf, William Fraser, director of research and development for Union Carbide's Poly-mers Group, said his firm is increasing its size as a supplier of polyolefin resins and as a licenser of resin production technology.
Union Carbide acquired the North American PP business from Shell Chemical Co., and is increasing its worldwide PE production capacity, including capacity from joint ventures, to more than 6.6 billion pounds by 1997.
Part of the expansion will be the introduction of PE resins made with metallocene catalysts.
Fraser said the line can be processed as easily as low density PE made in a high-pressure autoclave, but has a broad molecular weight distribution and a narrow composition distribution.
Carbide also intends to license its proprietary metallocene technology for use in its Unipol PE production units, Fraser said, and will introduce ethylene propylene rubber and ethylene propylene dimethylene rubber products later this year.
