Lummus Bags Contract for Zhangzhou CHIMEI’s Polycarbonate Upstream Plant in China

Lummus Technology Inc., a renowned licensing company for proprietary petrochemical technologies, added another feather to its cap by winning a contract for providing technology to Zhangzhou CHIMEI’s plant for Diphenyl Carbonate in Fujian, China. Lummus services will cover technology licencing, process design packaging, operator training and technical assistance to the company’s plant.

Zhangzhou CHIMEI, a subsidiary company of Taiwan’s performance chemicals major CHIMEI group, has planned to commission a new Polycarbonate plant that will be exploiting Lummus licensed upstream Diphenyl Carbonate plant for feedstocks. The Diphenyl Carbonate plant, scheduled for successful operation by quarter four of 2024, will exhibit a capacity of 156 KTPA.

Lummus’s Diphenyl Carbonate process technology allows Diphenyl Carbonate production using Dimethyl Carbonate and Phenol precursors with the provision for recycling of by-product Methanol to the upstream Dimethyl Carbonate production. Zhangzhou CHIMEI will be catering to eco-friendly and non-corrosive production using Lummus’s Diphenyl Carbonate technology that will enable Polycarbonate production without requiring phosgene and chlorine. 

Polycarbonates are a family of transparent thermoplastic polymers ingrained with the properties of mouldability, stiffness, and chemical resistance. They serve many end-user sectors like electronics, automotive, home appliances, construction, packaging, and medical equipment. 

As per ChemAnalyst, the addition of a Polycarbonate production facility will suffice the Polycarbonate demand in China, the largest consumer of the global Polycarbonate market. The eco-friendly technology for Polycarbonate production will reinforce the circular economy by enabling the recycling of intermediate products and capitalizing on optimized energy efficiency.