EPDM Manufacturing in North America: the First 50 Years

50 years ago this year, the first large-scale batch of EPDM was made in a plant in Beaumont, TX.  How different is the manufacturing of today!  Today, the efficiency and sustainability of polymerization processes would astonish the engineers of the early 1960s.  Today’s engineer operates in a global environment where a process that uses raw materials inefficiently could neither survive economically, nor would the plant retain its stakeholders’ assent to operate.  This paper reviews some of the changes since the first EPDM plant started and discusses how the latest developments in raw materials, catalysts and processes will sustain our industry as it enters its second half century.