EPM/EPDM was initially discovered in the mid-1950s through groundbreaking research on ionic coordination catalysts by Professor Natta and Professor Ziegler. The first commercial Co-Polymer (EPM) was manufactured in the Montecatini plant of Ferrara, Italy (now Versalis), in the early 1960s, employing slurry technology and supported by Natta.
American companies, including Enjay (later Exxon) in Baton Rouge for butyl rubber and DuPont in Beaumont, Texas, quickly adopted Montecatini’s slurry technology to produce this rubber. DuPont commercialized the first Ter-polymer (EPDM) by using a small amount of norbornene as a comonomer in ethylene-propylene system, and soon after in Ferrara by Montecatini.
Simultaneously, the United States Rubber Company (later Uniroyal, then Lion Elastomers) used a solution technology in Geismar, Louisiana, utilizing the Ziegler-Natta catalytic system.
Years later, companies experienced in solution processes like PBR (Poly Butadiene Rubbers), revamped, innovated, or established new solution based EPM/EPDM production processes based on their expertise with solvents.
In the late 1980s, a gas phase technology developed by Union Carbide and practiced at Seadrift plant, Texas, of Dow Chemicals on the basis of their experience on polyethylene, but the plant ceased the production in 2009.
In the current landscape, with a total installed capacity of 2’000 KTA distributed among 14 producers in about 33 active production lines, 87% of EPM/EPDM rubbers are produced using solution technology.
The rest 13% of the global capacity that uses slurry process are located in Ferrara, Italy and Yeosu, South Korea.
Automotive industry stands as the predominant end-use market for EPM/EPDM, constituting approximately 60% of its consumption, closely aligned with car production.
IPT introduces the 2nd generation of its EPM/EPDM solution technology, incorporating significant enhancements in the following aspects:
Environmental emission and Carbon footprint
Process control, safety, reliability and operation
