Research - Total Petrochemicals Research Feluy

The Feluy Research Centre, Total Petrochemicals’ largest R&D Centre with personnel in excess of 400 people, pools catalyst expertise for petrochemicals, base chemicals, and refining.

Its main mission is to improve and develop new technologies and new polyolefins jointly with the Mont/Lacq (France) and La Porte (United States) research centres. To carry this through, Total Petrochemicals Research Feluy prospects and develops technology based on the Group’s objectives, cooperates with the factories, and assists customers both in making optimum use of the products and in developing new applications. The proximity of the research centre, the polymer production plant and the sales teams within the same site makes for better and more frequent contacts between people, promotes synergies, and, through greater efficiency, helps reduce the product development cycle. Over half the grades marketed today have been developed, improved or renewed in the last five years, which proves the success of the organisation in place.

Taking part in regional development In 2003 Total Petrochemicals Research Feluy, the Walloon Region and the European Union signed a 3-year convention on the synthesis of new generation catalysts using the high throughput screening method. Research is conducted at the Feluy Research Centre and at Certech (Chemistry Technological Resources Centre), a spinoff of the Université Catholique de Louvain-La-Neuve set up in 1996 and based in Seneffe. Over and above the pooling of competences between university and industry, this cooperation venture also aims to stimulate the creation of high added value jobs in the Centre region of Belgium by securing in particular the manufacture of the new catalysts in the area.

Sustainable development is also at the heart of the concerns of Total Petrochemicals Research Feluy. The bimodal polyethylene technology, developed in Feluy and which the Group owns exclusively, as well as the metallocene catalyst technology, in the development of which Total is a major player, help produce plastics which boast improved properties and are less heavy and less bulky than those produced from traditional resins. Other ambitious projects are also underway in particular in the field of management of end-of-life plastics.

The biodegradability of commodity polymers is a challenge which Total Petrochemicals, as a responsible plastics producer, has decided to take up through Total Petrochemicals Research Feluy, and with the cooperation of the Group’s other research centres as well as external partners. Biodegradability through UV exposure or through low temperature is one of the research areas overseen by the Feluy R&D Centre. Meanwhile, research is also being undertaken into biodegradable polymers manufactured from renewable resources of agricultural origin. Additionally, the Company has joined forces with IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer) to develop new polyesters produced by marine micro-organisms.