A new catalyst for PET

Titanium catalyst technology for the industrial production of PET is now being adopted around the globe as PET manufacturers and processors seek to eliminate the use of the heavy metal catalyst antimony oxide. The technology was developed by Catalytic Technologies, a company established in late 2010 on Teesside in the United Kingdom, and in 2013 it launched its patent pending UP-technology platform which exhibits very high performance. UP is a catalyst technology platform that allows the company to produce catalysts with unique chemical composition and that eliminates undesired side reactions in this application.
In addition to eliminating antimony oxide, the new catalyst offers a range of other benefits. These include high polymer thermal stability, improved brightness and clarity owing to lower impurity content, a significant net reduction in the overall process energy required to produce plastic packaging and, most significantly, lighter bottles without compromising on bottle strength.
The company's UP-technology platform is being exploited on industrial scale plants in Asia with further commercial trials scheduled and worldwide pilot unit testing on-going. The success is due in part to the decision to invest in a continuous pilot unit catalyst trial on Uhde Inventa-Fischer's state of the art polyester 2R-MTR pilot plant. The trial enabled substantial testing of the new UP-catalysts by independent PET polyester production experts to demonstrate the benefits of the catalyst technology compared to the industry antimony reference.
The company's new products target the markets for mainstream, high intrinsic viscosity PET resin and sheet used for the production of bottle and packaging plastics. Their use is currently greater than 30 million metric tonnes per annum. Alan Cooper, technical director at Catalytic Technologies, said: "The eco-credentials of our new UP-technology are indisputable. The UP-technology platform can be modified to act as a drop-in replacement to current heavy metal catalysts for all PET production processes without any compromises. This new UP-technology benefits everyone along the supply chain; PET resin manufacturers, resin processors and the packaging consumers. Importantly, all of these wide ranging advantages can be achieved without an increase in cost to the consumer".
The company now aims to apply their innovative and ground-breaking technology platform into other organo-titanium and zirconium areas, the timing of which has never been of greater significance as the use of toxic, restricted availability and often expensive alternatives comes under scrutiny.