Successful Guarantee Test Run of One of the World's Largest Terephthalic Acid Plant
September 26, 2005
Together with its partners Eastman Chemical Company, Kingsport (USA) and SK Chemicals Co. Ltd. Seoul (Korea) and the owner Hualian Sunshine Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Lurgi has successfully completed the guarantee test run of the world's largest and by far most innovative E PTA plant in Shaoxing (PR China).
The plant is designed for an annual capacity of 660,000 tons terephthalic acid. Only two months after startup and less than 28 months after contract award already the first guarantee test run could be completed successfully. The values achieved in terms of product quality and consumption figures were appreciably better than the guaranteed values.
Terephthalic acid is a base chemical for the production of PET bottles, PET containers, all types of polyester fibers as well as other engineered plastics. Eastman Polymer-Grade Terephthalic Acid (E PTA) is suited for all these applications. Compared with the conventional PTA technology the E PTA process excels on account of the lower invest cost as well as substantially lower production costs.
Brisk demand for E PTA demonstrates that the more competitively priced E PTA is conceived as a viable alternative to conventional PTA in the Chinese market. It can be assumed that E PTA will revolutionize the Chinese market which is the world's largest market for Terephthalic Acid
