Novolen® Polypropylene Update

Published December 2023

This review presents an update on polypropylene production by Lummus’ Novolen® gas phase polypropylene process. The Novolen® PP technology was first developed in 1962 by BASF. The technology, since 2000 belonging to Lummus Technology, has continued to develop and advance, responding to changing global demand, thereby, remaining one of the most licensed polypropylene processes, showing improvement in recent years based on larger single line world-scale capacities available, and its competitiveness in capital expenditure (capex), operating expenditure (opex) and energy consumption. This review includes the industrial status and licensing activities of the Novolen® process. Features and differences between various gas-phase polypropylene processes are summarized. Techno-economic evaluations of the Novolen® process for a polypropylene plant capable of producing homopolymer, random copolymer and impact copolymer based on a world-scale production plant are presented. The iPEP Navigator for the process is attached to the electronic version of this review. The iPEP Navigator interactive module provides an economic snapshot for each process, allowing the user to select and compare the processes, units and regions of interest