ί» Grace's n e w polyethylene plant was built on 30 acres of a 150-acre site, allowing a lot of expansion room. A staff of 225 will man t h e plant o n a three-shift basis
Key points of operating efficiency are these polymer blending tanks where poly mer a n d solvent are stored in process. Plant and development facilities cost over $18 million. Fluor built the plant in less than 15 months
Polyethylene Shifts into Higher Gear . A D D ANOTKJSR 5 0 million pounds to
domestic lovv-pressure-process poly ethylene capacity. Last week, W . R. Grace announced that its Phillips-type plant at Baton Rouge, La., was not only on s t r e a m but had been operating successfully for two weeks. Grace calls the 50-million-pound fa cility the largest such plant to come on stream as an integrated operating unit. Over-all cost of plant and research and development facilities exceeds $18 mil lion. Fluor Corp. built t h e plant, and it was u n d e r construction less than 15 months. Since mid-1956, Grace has been us ing a $1 million, 1000-pound-per-day semiworks plant a s a process proving ground, personnel training operation, and supply source. This unit will con tinue to b e used but with a new pur Storage capacity is a n essential of any plant. These polymer storage tanks pose in m i n d . Officials plan t o make copolymers are m a d e of aluminum, as is much of of ethylene and other olefins there "in the equipment 30
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the near future." Presumably this in cludes ethylene-propylene, ethylenebutylene, and ethylene-isobutylene polymers. Also, they plan further work with Phillips-type polyethylene, "modi fying it for specific uses." T h e new main plant can be easily modified and shifted to production of other polyolefins. • Delays in Ethylene Plant. Esso at Baton Rouge is the plant's ethylene source. Grace had originally planned to be on stream during this past sum mer (C&EN, Apr. 8, page 1 5 ) . But as Grace's original on-stream date ap proached, it was evident that equip ment delays would hold back comple tion of Esso's new ethylene plant. Some engineering novelty took over. A fleet of high pressure gas truck* trailers have since been bringing in ethylene from East Texas. Accumulated i n Esso's underground storage, this supply will enable Grace to operate through the
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I n this solvent preparation area, both new and recirculated hydrocarbon solvents are treated to maintain specifications on the final polyethylene product
W . R. Grace puts its 50-million-pound Phillips-type olefin polymer plant into operation at Baton Rouge, La.
end of this month, when t h e permanent ethylene unit goes on stream four miles away. Safety was a major design emphasis at Grace's new facility. Graphic panel control rooms run each manufacturing operation. Should an operator press a wrong button, an interlock system catches the error automatically before the process step is carried out. A sprinkler system permits any section to b e deluged with water in seconds from the control rooms or by the vessels themselves. Safeguards to eliminate polymer "freezing" during process interruption have been installed. Design engineers felt that maximum utilization of aluminum was desirable. Aluminum piping, storage facilities, and equipment are extensively employed. For example, two large horizontal, steam-tube dryers, 5 5 feet long a n d 5 feet in diameter, Grace says, are the first all-welded aluminum dryers ever
built. They were fabricated by Standard Steel Corp. Grace thus becomes the third domestic Phillips-type polyethylene producer to put its major plant on stream. Phillips and Celanese have been operating throughout the year near Houston, Tex. Hercules has had its Ziegler-type polyethylene plant on stream for a half year, and just last week announced operation of the first North American polypropylene plant at Parlin, N. J. (C&EN, Dec. 2, page 2 5 ) . Other polyethylene plants are rapidly nearing completion. Koppers' Port Reading, N . J., plant has suffered various delays and is now scheduled for operation "shortly after the first of t h e year," according to company spokesmen. Carbide's two plants—Zieglertype a t Institute, W. Va., and Phillipstype at Seadrift, Tex.—are d u e o n stream almost immediately. Other companies are slated to run later.
Polyethylene from these extruders is chopped into pellets, dropped into a water bath, then air-dried and bagged
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Graphic panel boards run each manufacturing operation at the G r a c e plant. This one serves the bagging section DEC.
9, 1957 C & E N
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