In response to burgeoning demand for polycarbonate, which is estimated to have grown by 10% annually over the last decade, GE Plastics (GEP, PO Box 117, NL-AC Bergen op Zoom) is investing USD 700m in an expansion of capacity for its "Lexan" brand at Cartagena, Spain. The group said the new 130,000 t/y plant, which will supply Europe and the Pacific, is its largest single investment outside the US. Scheduled for start-up in 1999, it will supply PC for high-end products such as CDs, safety glazing, automotive headlamp lenses and ophthalmic applications. It also will produce Cycoloy PC/ABS blends.

GE's new process for PC bypasses phosgene – the chemical implicated in the Bhopal disaster – and, the company says, it produces a resin with optical qualities close to that of PMMA. The technology developed at a GEP semi-commercial plant in Japan converts natural gas to carbon monoxide, which then reacts with methanol to produce dimethyl carbonate (DMC). The methanol in the DMC is displaced by phenol to produce diphenyl carbonate (DPG), and, in a separate step, acetone and phenol are used to produce bisphenol A at a purity of more than 99.5%. Together with DPC, this is fed to a melt reactor to produce polycarbonate, subsequently purified in a single stage to extrusion. The process will be tested further in a pilot plant at Cartagena.

READER SERVICE: Comprehensive press material on the new Cartagena capacity and other of GEP 's engineering thermoplastics (English): PIE-No. 42791.