Egyptian-American Industrial Plastics
Cast Acrylic Sheet Manufacturing Facility
10th of Ramadan Industrial City near Cairo, Egypt
Comissioned in May of 2000, this facility is owned by Ideal Standard Egypt.  It is currently producing in excess of 5000 metric tons of sanitaryware acrylic sheet per year and is poised for a major expansion.  Although American (Ideal) Standard is a US$7 billion company, this was the first chemical factory they have ever built.  This proved to be quite a challenge, especially making a fairly exclusive market polymer with no R & D to back the effort.
   A substantial investment was made by the company to make this one of the most modern and automated acrylic casting facilities in the world.
Combination dynamic/static mixing system for the acrylic casting solution.
Pouring casting solution between glass sheets of the casting cell.  The sheets are separated by a PVC gasket and held together by edge clamps.
Inspection of Finished Sheets
  The basic idea behind acrylic casting is quite simple, the actuality is rather complicated.  You prepolymerize methylmethacrylate, making a syrup, then mix the prepolymer with colorant, initiator, and other chemicals to make a casting solution.  This casting solution is then poured between two large sheets of glass bordered by a gasket.  The solution is then heat cured to form the solid acrylic.
   There is a lot to know in that process.  The initial syrup requires a demanding combination of molecular weight, conversion, viscocity, and reaction time.  That portion of the operation is performed in two 300 gallon batch reactors which run offset from each other it a syrup tower.  The entire process is automated using the Honeywell PlantScape system coupled with an Allen Bradley process control system.  This system not only controls the syrup tower.  It monitors all the plant utilities and raw material input.
   Formulation of the casting solution is critical.  It involves complex issues in color chemistry, crosslinking, exotherm control, mold release, and molecular weight development in a matrix.
  Being involved in this project from it's begining, through to a profitable production facility, and then expanding its product range was challenging and rewarding.  It involved not only coming up with creative technical solutions but motivating and managing others toward the goal, crossing language barriers, and keeping a sharp eye towards profitability and cost reduction.
In the Summer of 2003, we added a depolymerization unit.  Acrylic is unique in that it can be depolymerized under heat cracking to it's original monomer.  Through this addition, we not only consume our own waste stream, but very profitably turn 80% of it back into base monomer.  This not only pleased the environmental authorities but turned the facility into Ideal Standards most profitable plant in the world.