PTA and PET producer Lotte Chemical UK Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of KP ChemicalCorporation of Korea and part of the Lotte group of companies, has commissioned Uhde Inventa-Fischer tobuild a plant for the production of high-quality PET. The new plant will have a production capacity of 200,000tonnes per year and will be located at Lotte’s production facility at the Wilton International site, near to Middlesbroughin the North – East of England.
Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s scope of supplies and services includes the basic and detail engineering, supply of allplant components and supervision of the construction and commissioning activities. The operating personnelwill also be trained by Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s experienced specialists. Under the contract of Uhde Inventa-Fischer and Lotte, ThyssenKrupp Uhde and Uhde India will provide the civil and steel structure engineering.
The Uhde Inventa-Fischer's state-of-the-art, energy-efficient and patented Melt-To-Resin (MTR®) technologywill be applied for the production. The MTR®Hprocess is based on the two-reactor high-viscosity technologydeveloped by Uhde Inventa-Fischer and uses the patented ESPREE® and DISCAGE® reactors to ensureproduction of the required high melt viscosity on a sustained basis. It is a cost efficient replacement for themore traditional two stage plants for the production of PET involving a Continuous Polymerisation Plant (CP)with four reactors and a Solid State Polymerisation Plant (SSP) and consequently has lower investment andoperating costs for similar sized installations.
Product quality of resin from MTR® technology plants is proven to be excellent and resin made from thisprocess is already well established in the European marketplace and is used, for example, as feedstock forthe production of water and CSD bottles. Lotte Chemical UK Ltd. produces the raw material, pure terephthalicacid (PTA), at its site and will supply PTA to the new plant directly via pipeline.
Illustration:
3D Model of an MTR Plant at Lotte Chemical UK Ltd at Middlesbrough in
the NE of England
