PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2014

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 21 PET planet insider Vol. 15 In addition, this proprietary tita- nium technology can be used to achieve all of the above benefits com- pletely in the absence of any heavy metals and has been proven in both preform extrusion and bottle blowing following a successful 1,200kg/day PET chip continuous pilot unit trial. With typical addition levels of just 9-10 ppm Ti and 18-25 ppm phos- phorous based on final polymer weight, replacement of antimony catalysts with CTL Ti638 UP is simple and requires no process control changes and only a minimal colour correc- tion increase. This huge reduction in the amount of catalyst used dramatically reduces metal particulates in the PET polymer and also particulates that can cause fouling on the manu- facturing plant. Favourable crystallisation properties of the Ti-PET allow manu- facturers to decrease, or even eliminate, the more expensive isophthalic acid currently used for crystal- linity control. On industrial scale The company’s UP- Technology platform is being exploited on indus- trial scale plants in Asia with further commercial trials scheduled and worldwide pilot unit testing on-going. The company has invested in a continu- ous pilot unit catalyst trial on Uhde Inventa-Fischer’s polyester 2R-MTR pilot plant. The trial enabled substantial testing of CTL’s new UP-catalysts by independent PET polyes- ter production experts to demonstrate the benefits of the catalyst technology compared to the industry antimony reference. CTL’s products target the markets for main- stream, high intrinsic vis- cosity PET resin and sheet used for the production of bottle and packaging plas- tics. Their use is currently greater than 30 million t/a. Dr Alan Cooper, Technical Director, said: “The UP Technology platform can be modi- fied to act as a drop-in replacement to current heavy metal catalysts for all PET production processes without any compromises. ” CTL has received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2014, in the Innovation category. The award recog- nises the commercial success of the company’s new polyester catalyst busi- ness. CTL have set the ambitious, but, in Dr Cooper’s opinion, “achievable” business target of taking over 50% of the PET resin and sheet market within the next five years. CTL now aims to apply their 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. www.ctl8.com