This Total Petrochemicals project was launched in 2002. It has now shown, on a semi-industrial scale, the technical and economic feasibility of two different processes:
- methanol-to-olefins (MTO) and
- the olefins cracking process (OCP).
The innovation of our project is to combine these two processes in a single demonstration unit. The MTO unit, located at the Feluy site in Belgium, was inaugurated in October 2008. It was then linked up to an on-site pilot polymerisation unit, thus creating the only R&D demonstration project of its kind in the world.
The methanol is first transformed into light olefins (ethylene and propylene) in the MTO unit. These two gases are then separated and piped to the polymerisation pilot where they are transformed into polyethylene and polypropylene using the OCP process. Both polymers are then tested to ensure the meet the required quality standards.
In May 2009, for the first time, the Feluy project successfully produced commercial-quality polypropylene using propylene derived from methanol.
For Total Petrochemicals, this first success means that we can envisage large-scale production of polyolefins using alternative raw materials such as coal, natural gas or biomass.