Exxonmobil Chemical Patents Inc.

Roger L Claessens

Henri Aime Lammens

Tom Van Nuland

Geert Vaes

Paul Jan Clymans

Ivo T Goossens

The invention relates to high pressure tubular reactor olefin polymerization plants having improved specific energy consumption. The plants may be newly constructed or made by de-bottlenecking an existing plant. The tube of the tubular reactor may have improved arrangements for cooling to increase conversion and optimized polymer-recycle gas separation arrangements using a jet pump for recycling unreacted monomer while permitting haze to be maintained. The improved cooling arrangements include a reduced pressure cooling zone forming the tail end of the tube and/or a shortened heating zone for the front feed and allowing more monomer to be fed as a side feed.

High pressure polymerization process

The invention provides an apparatus and a process for the high pressure polymerization of ethylene, optionally with one or more comonomers, in which unreacted monomer is separated from the polymer in a separation system having at least first, second and third separation vessels and in which off gas from the second vessel is recombined back into the product mixture upstream of the first separation vessel, preferably using a jet pump.

Growing community of inventors

Berlaar, Belgium

Roger L Claessens