Germany-based TPE maker Kraiburg is preparing for commercial production of its TPE made using Shell Risella X, a premium process oil derived from Shell’s Gas to Liquid (GTL) technology. The firm says tests have showed improved compatibility in the TPE matrix due to the chemical structure of the oil. As the basic building block for Risella X is natural gas, rather than crude oil, it has a different chemical structure to conventional mineral-oil based process oils.
GTL is the product of almost 40 years of research and technology driven by Shell. Using a technology known as Fischer-Tropsch, developed by German scientists in the 1920s and refined by Shell, GTL enables large scale production of base oils for the manufacture of premium finished lubricants and process oils from clean-burning natural gas. This technology has been brought to life in the GTL Pearl plant, a joint development between Qatar Petroleum and Shell, which has a capacity of 260,000 barrels/day of oil. The plant in Qatar is the world’s largest source of GTL products, including low emission transport fuels, chemical feedstocks and premium base oils.