Newsbrief: Recent Innovations in Korean Chemical Industry

Abstract

The Korean chemical industry has made enormous strides during the past quarter century. Since it began to produce ethylene in 1968 at an annual capacity of 100,000 ton, Korea is now the fourth largest ethylene producer in the world, with an annual capacity of 5 million ton, a 50-fold increase in 30 yr. The Korean chemical industry has also been active in developing new catalysts and catalytic processes. Recently, the two largest chemical companies in Korea, LG Chem Ltd and SK Corp have announced their achievements in innovative catalytic technology. LG Chem Ltd has developed a new Condensed Non-phosgene Polycarbonate Process. Compared with the conventional phosgene process, the newly developed process is likely to reduce investment costs by 70%. LG Chem Ltd also announced that they successfully developed an advanced acrylic acid production process using its own catalyst technology. SK Corp, the second largest chemical company in Korea, has successfully developed its own transalkylation catalysts for a large-scale chemical process, e.g., Tatoray Process, which produces xylenes. The new SK catalysts (ATA-11, ART-11) are based on a zeolite-like existing catalysts, but a metallic function was added to prolong its life-time by a factor of two. Recently SK sold the technology to manufacture these catalysts to Zeolyst International, a subsidiary company of Royal Dutch Shell Group of Company