Process

Abstract

The present invention relates to the treatment and recycle of effluent streams from a polymerisation process, and in particular provides a polymerisation process comprising the steps of: 1) Polymerising a monomer and a comonomer in a polymerisation reaction, 2) Withdrawing an effluent stream comprising solid polymer and a mixture comprising unreacted monomer and unreacted comonomer, and passing the effluent to a high pressure recovery system comprising a. a high pressure separation step for separating a vapour comprising unreacted monomer and unreacted comonomer from said solids, and b. a high pressure recycle system for recycling a portion of the vapour to the polymerisation reaction, 3) Passing the solids from the high pressure recovery system to a low pressure recovery system comprising a. a low pressure separation step for separating further unreacted monomer and unreacted comonomer from said solids, and b. a low pressure recycle system for recycling at least a portion of the unreacted monomer and unreacted comonomr to the polymerisation reaction, characterised in that a portion of the vapour separated in step 2(a) is passed to the low pressure recovery system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.