Acrylics
Technologies:
The chemical foundation for countless high-value plastics, adhesives, and superabsorbent polymers.
40+
years of commercial use
40%
lower specific energy consumptions compared to alternative technologies
Acrylate Esters (Acrylates)
Precision Conversion for a Vast Polymer Base
Our Acrylate technologies enables propylene producers to transform ester-grade acrylic acid into a vast and highly profitable range of final, high-performance products for major global industries. By esterification of oxo-alcohol with ester-grade acrylic acid, this commercially proven process creates the crucial acrylate esters used in a vast spectrum of resins, coatings, adhesives, and rubbers.
With low carbon intensity, high yields, proven reliability and flexible campaign operation, our Acrylate technologies deliver strong CAPEX and OPEX performance across integrated chemical value chains. Backed by commercial operation since the 1980s, they continue to help producers expand reach and meet demanding investment goals sustainably.
What sets our tech apart:
- High process reliability with proven operating experience
- Specialized design features and operating practices to control polymerization
- Low operating costs, with integration with Acrylic Acid process
Specialty Chemicals
Essential chemistry for high-performance polymers and advanced materials.
7
commercial plants worldwide since 1989
99.9wt%
cyclohexanone purity
99%
yield of cyclohexanone to oxime
ALMA Process
High-quality maleic anhydride at lower cost
Our ALMA (Advanced Lummus Maleic Anhydride) process helps producers create high quality maleic anhydride for resins, coatings, and specialty chemicals at a lower cost. Unlike traditional maleic anhydride production, which uses a fixed-bed reactor that may have hot spots, ALMA uses an energy-efficient, fluid-bed reactor system and a proprietary catalyst to ensure large-scale, reliable production from n-butane. The improved heat control of this system reduces waste and product loss, ensuring excellent onstream and environmental performance. Jointly developed with Polynt SpA, the ALMA process boasts decades of commercial success in seven plants worldwide, with negligible attrition, low replacement rates, and ongoing advancements.
What sets our tech apart:
- Lower investment, less down time, and greater energy efficiency with fluid bed reactor system
- Large single-train capacity
- Low replacement rate
- Superior quality product
Phenol
Highest-purity phenol and acetone with the lowest carbon footprint
Our best-in-class phenol technology helps producers turn cumene into high-purity phenol and acetone for the polycarbonate, resin, and pharmaceutical industries. The process uses advanced technology to air oxidize cumene. It then breaks down the resulting chemical with an acid catalyst. This state-of-the-art technology maximizes conversion and minimizes unwanted byproducts, ensuring a high yield of both phenol and acetone and achieving the lowest carbon footprint among available phenol technologies.
What sets our tech apart:
- Low Carbon Footprint: Minimal air consumption, option for turbo expander, heat interchange system, vent gas treatment, wastewater treatment
- Low cost and safe: Wet oxidation and advanced cleavage technology
- High yield: Dry oxidation and minimal reactor volume
- Highest purity phenol and acetone
Acetone Hydrogenation
Upgrading acetone feedstock to high-purity IPA
Complementary to our phenol technology, our Acetone Hydrogenation technology helps producers turn acetone into high purity isopropanol (IPA) for use in solvents, disinfectants, pharmaceuticals, and chemical intermediates. The process hydrogenates acetone to IPA and then distills the raw IPA to produce a high purity product using a simple, fixed-bed reactor with all carbon steel construction. With its inexpensive feedstock, environmentally friendly catalysts, low maintenance costs, and long run lengths, our acetone hydrogenation technology an easy investment for high-purity IPA.
What sets our tech apart:
- Low-cost, byproduct feedstock
- High IPA product purity
- High conversion
- Low investment and plant maintenance costs
Cyclohexanone
The single step upgrade to high-purity cyclohexanone
Our cyclohexanone technology helps producers turn phenol into cyclohexanone, a key chemical intermediate in the production of Nylon 6. The process hydrogenates phenol in a single step process, without a need for a dedicated dehydrogenation section. Used in operations since the late 1980s, our technology is reliable and safe, yielding cyclohexanone of 99.90 wt% purity or higher.
What sets our tech apart:
- High selectivity with minimal formation of byproduct impurities
- Longer catalyst life
- Low investment and plant maintenance costs
- Low energy costs
- Lower hydrogen consumption
- Greater flexibility of product mix (cyclohexanone, cyclohexanol and KA-oil)
Cyclohexanone Oxime (Ammoximation)
The safer, greener, cost-effective path to Nylon 6
Our Cyclohexanone oxime enables producers to convert cyclohexanone to high-purity cyclohexanone oxime, a critical intermediate for caprolactam and Nylon 6 production. Using a proprietary Titanium Silicalite catalyst (TS-1) and innovative reactor design, the technology performs a single step ammoximation reaction with ammonia and hydrogen peroxide--eliminating the need for upstream hydroxylamine production and avoiding low-value ammonium sulfate byproducts.
Proven in commercial operation since 2001, it delivers inherent safety, environmental, and cost advantages while providing a reliable, high-purity oxime supply for global nylon value chains.
What sets our tech apart:
- Direct oxidation to oxime without hydroxylamine or ammonium sulfate chemistryHigh selectivity to oxime product with environmentally-friendly design
Aromatics
Technologies for transforming hydrocarbons into essential aromatic building blocks.
30+
commercial plants worldwide using Styrene tech
60+
years of optimizing Paraxylene technology
>50
commercial plants using Ethylbenzene EBOne tech
99.9wt%
product purity for DETOL®, LITOL®, and PYROTOL® tech
Styrene
The reliable path to meeting global demand for ethylbenzene and styrene monomer
Recognized as one of the most efficient, reliable processes in the industry, our styrene technology helps producers turn benzene and ethylene into ethylbenzene and styrene monomer, key ingredients in the production of polystyrene plastics and synthetic rubber. The technology involves a deep vacuum/adiabatic EB dehydrogenation technology and has demonstrated high mechanical integrity. Its unique dehydrogenation reactor system operates at the most cost-effective, minimal operating pressure to achieve the highest styrene monomer selectivity at high conversions. Used in more than 30 commercial plants worldwide, our proven styrene technology gives producers proven reliability and scale to meet global demand.
What sets our tech apart:
- High energy recovery
- High single-pass conversions
- High styrene monomer selectivity
- High mechanical integrity
- Long reactor run lengths
- Low production costs
Cumene
The pathway to producing ultra-high purity feedstock for phenol and acetone
Versalis/Lummus Cumene technology is a state-of-the-art liquid-phase alkylation platform that enables producers to manufacture cumene with industry-leading effiiency and performance.
Operating commercially since the 1990s, the technology is built on a proprietary zeolite catalyst (PBE-1) that provides high activity, selectivity, and long run lengths with low catalyst volume.The PBE-1 catalyst can be regenerated multiple times while maintaining fresh-catalyst performance. With a unique process configuration and integrated heat recovery that minimizes high-pressure steam demand, the technology achieves among the lowest energy consumption--and lowest production cost--in cumene manufacturing.
What sets our tech apart:
- Lowest cost of production per MT of cumene among all competing technologies due to the lowest energy consumption.
- The cost of utilities per MT of cumene product for the Versalis/Lummus process is 20-25% lower than the other commercially available cumene technologies.
- Very high cumene yield (>99.7 % wt.) with ultra-high purity cumene product (99.97+ % wt.) as demonstrated in the operating cumene plants.
- Low benzene and propylene raw material specific consumption per MT of cumene product.
- Excellent integration with the downstream phenol unit which allows to achieve lowest energy consumption for the integrated Cumene-Phenol complex.
Paraxylene
The most energy-efficient paraxylene recovery method
Licensed exclusively by Lummus, our paraxylene (pX) technology is the most energy-efficient in the world, helping producers recover high-purity paraxylene for polyester production. Originally developed by INEOS the technology uses a novel crystallization process paired with high feed impurity tolerance and low overall unit fuel consumption. Used for over 60 years in all six of INEOS’s operating pX units, BP continues to improve both process performance and design regularly.
What sets our tech apart:
- Innovative crystallization process
- Highly energy efficient process with robust catalyst system
- Lower overall energy usage
- Lower xylene splitter (xylene recovery column) operating pressure, no isomerization stabilizer required
- No aromatics extraction process required for min. 99.9 wt% purity of benzene production
- Less stringent feed specification requirements
- Higher feed impurity tolerance
- No proprietary equipment required
- No special chemicals or adsorbent required
- Smaller plot size requirement
- Lower CAPEX/OPEX
- Lower emissions and flare load
Ethylbenzene EBOne
Reliable and efficient production of high-purity ethylbenzene (EB)
Regarded as one of the most modern, efficient, and reliable intermediate processes, our EBOne technology helps producers turn benzene and ethylene into ethylbenzene (EB) and styrene monomer (SM). The EBOne process uses a fixed-bed catalyst system that can operate for three to five years without needing to be regenerated, significantly reducing investment and maintenance costs. This energy-efficient process delivers high yields and a high-purity ethylbenzene product with virtually no xylene impurities. Innovated through a Lummus Technology/UOP Customer partnership, the use of regenerated catalyst is also commercially proven, exhibiting performance equal to or better than fresh catalyst.
What sets our tech apart:
- Uninterrupted catalyst run-length with excellent stability—Maximizes plant uptime
- Extended catalyst life (up to 4 regeneration cycles without performance deterioration)
- Up to 99.95 wt% EB product purity with essentially no xylene formation
- High yield—Minimizes production cost
- All carbon steel equipment—Reduces investment
- Low investment requirements
- Energy-efficient
- Reliable and easy-to-operate plant
PYROTOL / DETOL / LITOL
Convert aromatic streams into high-purity benzene
Producers use our DETOL®, LITOL®, and PYROTOL® dealkylation processes to convert aromatic streams into high-purity benzene. Owned by Clariant, this technology produces high-purity benzene from various aromatic-rich feedstock for manufacturing phenolics and other chemical products. Licensed for over 30 plants around the world, our dealkylation processes are trusted technologies.
What sets our tech apart:
- High aromatic selectivity
- Single step process
- Lower operating temperature than thermal processes
- No coking in heat exchange system
- Feedstock flexibility
Carbon
Technologies:
Highly ordered carbon essential for high-performance industrial applications.
Synthetic Carbon (Needle Coking)
Transforming unusable residues into useful light gas oil products and coke
Our synthetic carbon (needle coking) technology helps refineries transform heavy crude oil residues into lighter gas oil products and coke for graphite electrodes for steel production and anodes for high-end, lithium-ion batteries. The process provides refiners with a proven, flexible way to maximize fuel production by converting the most seemingly unusable of residues. Innovative and efficient, synthetic carbon technology helps reduce CAPEX, OPEX, and energy consumption.
Energy Transition
Technologies:
Sustainable, high-value intermediate solutions
Pyoil Isoconversion
Recycling low-value pyrolysis oil into high-value feedstocks
Our pyoil isoconversion technology helps producers upgrade pyrolysis oil, an output of recycled plastic, into high-quality feedstocks for new plastics or transportation fuel. By treating the pyrolysis oil with hydrogen at high pressure and temperature, our process removes contaminants and prepares the pyrolysis oil for the second stage. The oil is then sent to a reactor where it is converted over a specialized catalyst into a high-quality hydrocarbon product, which is then purified into a refinery-ready feedstock. An important stepping stone in the circular economy, our technology turns a low-value intermediate product into a high-value, refinery-ready component.
Styrene Monomer
Reliable and efficient production of high-purity styrene monomer (SM)
CLASSIC SM™ technology, developed by Lummus in collaboration with UOP, delivers high-conversion ethylbenzene dehydrogenation with high yields at minimum economical operating pressure. A uniquely integrated reactor system and patented azeotropic heat-recovery scheme reduce steam demand and drive exceptional overall energy efficiency. Designed to operate at a steam-to-oil ratio of 1.0 wt/wt, CLASSIC SM achieves proven mechanical reliability and consistent performance at scale,with more than 40 plants operating worldwide and over 60 projects selected since commercialization.
What sets our tech apart:
- Proven lowest operating steam-to-oil (S/O) ratio for an adiabatic technology
- Use of the most active and selective dehydrogenation catalysts available on the market
- Substantial recovery of low-level energy without any compression equipment
- High EB to SM selectivity only achievable at "deep" vacuum operations
- Industry proven mechanical reliability
- Long reactor run-lengths while using most advanced dehydrogenation catalyst
- Low investment requirements
- Energy-efficient
- Reliable and easy-to-operate plant
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