LyondellBasell is setting new standards for customer-driven R&D at its Cincinnati Technology Center
Innovating in today’s rapidly evolving polymer marketplace requires more than developing cutting-edge technologies. It also requires staying attuned to each customer's specific needs.
For LyondellBasell (LYB), innovation is inseparable from customer insight. Nowhere is this more evident than at our Cincinnati Technology Center (CTC), a 260,000-square-foot research and product development campus just 20 miles northeast of Cincinnati.
Advancing the industry while aligning with customer needs
LYB has developed a global technology and innovation ecosystem that aims to do for the polymer industry what Bell Labs did for modern electronics and telecommunication. The CTC represents the North American cornerstone of that ecosystem. By redefining how polymer R&D delivers customer-focused solutions in line with rapidly evolving industry demands, CTC embodies the LYB purpose of creating solutions for everyday sustainable living.
Behind its modest exterior, the CTC houses state-of-the-art laboratories, cutting-edge testing facilities and some of the brightest minds in polymer science. Together, these assets help customers reduce costs, meet sustainability goals and develop market-leading products in infrastructure, wire and cable and flexible packaging.
Infrastructure solutions built on decades of expertise
LYB has been a leading innovator in infrastructure product development for more than 70 years globally, including 30 years in North America.
“Historically, the Infrastructure group was called the Rigid Applications group, which included our broad portfolio of products used in drainage, conduit, household water, radiant heat, and pressure pipe applications,” says Richard Schmidt, AD&TS/PAD technical manager. “The name change reflects our evolution into a dynamic division better aligned with customer demands.”
Infrastructure products leverage the market-leading position that LYB enjoys as one of the largest global manufacturers of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Prized for its durability, chemical resistance and versatility, HDPE is the polymer of choice for a broad range of pipe applications. From gas/water distribution and plumbing to stormwater management systems and renewable energy installations, HDPE infrastructure solutions are engineered and tested at CTC to meet the most demanding applications.
“We have a long history of supplying polymer solutions and troubleshooting manufacturing challenges for our infrastructure customers,” says Douglas Keller, AD/TS engineer. “At the same time, we stay engaged in the industry, looking for new trends and developing technologies to stay ahead of changing manufacturing specifications.”
Recently, CTC’s infrastructure product developments have focused on developing polymers that address the market need for:
- Increased sustainability by including a larger share of post-consumer recycled (PCR) content in resins and compounded products.
- Greater resiliency, with products that last longer than copper, iron pipe, or concrete and have a lower cost of installation.
- Larger pipe diameters to efficiently transport larger volumes in water-intensive applications like municipal water and sewage.
Each new polymer can be put through its paces in extensive testing processes aligned to customer needs. For example, CTC includes extended durability testing that runs 10,000 hours or longer to evaluate a material’s reliability and performance in simulated, long-term field conditions.
“Our customers appreciate the efficiency and cost savings this test method provides,” says Keller. “They get a clearer understanding of material properties in less time, at lower costs and with far less waste.”
In addition, customers don’t have to tie up one of their manufacturing lines on a lengthy product test. They can also perform quality control on every batch, ensuring consistent product performance.
Wire & cable innovations for critical power and data transmission
Since 1974, the CTC has been a cornerstone of wire and cable (W&C) development and customer support for LYB products, which is synonymous with performance and reliability in the power, telecommunications and automotive sectors.
“Over the past 50 years, CTC has been committed to understanding customers’ unmet W&C needs in each of these market sectors,” said Fabio Ceccarini, technical manager, specialties. “We then develop new products that meet those unmet needs.”
CTC develops specialty compounded products using extensive manufacturing capabilities on Banbury mixers and proprietary twin screen technologies. The compounding process combines multiple resins and fillers to form a new polymer with a specific property profile for a particular customer requirement.
“Achieving the right property profile is critical for our customers and cannot be achieved with a neat polypropylene or polyethylene resin or off-the-shelf, commodity resins,” said Karl Brown, an AD/TS engineer and industry expert who has been developing automotive polymer solutions for more than 50 years. “And in my area, automotive, these formulations must meet stringent customer specifications, including high thermal endurance and flame retardancy.”
Since its opening, the CTC has been a reliable supplier of specialized compounds for automotive wire insulation. These compounds meet individual automakers' long-term performance requirements and give each customer confidence in CTC’s capabilities to deliver solutions for their future needs.
“We patented our first compound back in 1974, a 125 °C-rated cross-linked polyethylene for the engine compartment of internal combustion engines,” says Brown. “We’ve continued developing high-quality compounded products that adhere to our customers' strict performance and qualification requirements.”
Consider Petrothene T3XL7420 as an example. This custom compound was developed to help a customer resolve its processing challenges in thin-wall, primary wire applications. Brown and other CTC engineers worked closely with the customer to create a new compound with enhanced cure kinetics for increased manufacturing line speeds. After extensive internal qualification and prototype testing, the T3XL7420 compound delivered on all the customer requirements for improved product quality and manufacturing efficiency. Importantly, it also gave the customer greater supply flexibility for this wire application, breaking their dependence on a single vendor.
CTC’s experience supplying high-quality polymers for power distribution customers also goes back decades. We focus primarily on moisture cross-linkable polymers as insulation for low-voltage cables (less than 2,000 volts) and as jacketing for medium-voltage wire (15,000-70,000 volts).
“We count major utility companies as our main customer base,” says Sarah Gladding, an AD/TS engineer and CTC’s resident expert in polymer development for power transmission applications. “These customers have been coming back to us for years, because they consider our products best-in-class for their dielectric strength and resistance to abrasion, flame and environmental degradation.”
These customers also rely on Gladding and other experienced CTC engineers and scientists for their technical leadership, careful analysis and fast resolution of product issues.
“We work closely with customers to resolve manufacturing issues with existing products and test new materials,” says Gladding. “We routinely conduct electrical and physical testing of materials, and we even have a flame lab to conduct small-scale testing of a material’s ability to withstand excessive heat or a potential fire. Customers are excited to learn that we have these capabilities and to get the chance to observe these tests for themselves.”
In the initial screening stage for a new material, customers are encouraged to run trials on the CTC’s in-house wireline test kit. The wireline allows customers to conduct prototype electrical tests on various compounded materials, without interrupting their own production lines. The wireline test quickly screens new materials to arrive at the optimal formulation that will run efficiently on the customer’s manufacturing lines and ensure product quality and performance.
For telecommunications, CTC helps formulate and fine-tune compounded products that reliably insulate and enhance signal quality in data transmission cables. At the same time, products must be engineered with minimal material defects that could hinder data transmission across a network.
“Our testing and manufacturing capabilities ensure a very clean polymer, which is required to deliver a high-quality signal,” says Gladding.
These capabilities were crucial for a recent customer who required a polymer jacket for subsea fiber-optic cable. The polymer product must ensure long-term thermal and material stability to withstand years of harsh underwater conditions. Working closely with the customer, the CTC team developed, tested and tweaked compound formulations before arriving at a product that ensured minimal defects and excellent thermal stability. The successful project, which marked the customer’s first material qualification in a decade, elevated LYB standing as a trusted provider of high-quality polymer advances for the most demanding applications.
Engineering functionality and sustainability in flexible food packaging
CTC is also a leader in flexible food packaging, combining technical depth with the agility to meet changing consumer requirements. “We have a legacy in polyethylene and polypropylene films that stretches back to the 1980s,” says Matt Sonnycalb, AD&TS/PAD technical manager. “We draw on that legacy to develop new multi-layer packaging solutions that balance barrier performance, strength and recyclability.”
The center's seven-layer blown film and extrusion coating lines offer customers unique opportunities to prototype, test and commercialize packaging solutions quickly and efficiently. A recent success involved the development of a specialized resin for hot microwavable noodle cups, which was prototyped and scaled to market seamlessly, all from the CTC facility.
With growing pressure for sustainable packaging, the CTC is leading efforts to incorporate PCR from the CirculenRevive advanced recycling process and the CirculenRecover mechanically recycled process.
“Another innovative solution for recycled packaging includes our work with machine direction oriented (MDO) films,” says Sonnycalb. “We are one of the few resin suppliers to offer a pilot-scale MDO production line. This line gives our customers the chance to experiment with different resin formulations and processing conditions to find a formulation that provides the right material properties, at lower cost and less material usage than running trials on their own equipment.”
Research labs drive customer collaboration
CTC includes three integrated laboratories (applications, analytical and physical testing) each designed with customer needs at their core.
- Applications Labs replicate customer processing equipment, enabling real-world testing and optimization. “Our applications labs include pilot-scale processes for making injection-molded articles and blown films for food bags and a pipeline test for evaluating small pipeline sections made from new compounded materials,” says Thomas Schwab, director O&P Americas AD&TS. “Our customers enjoy coming to the facility and seeing these tests for themselves, under similar conditions to how they would make these products in their own facilities.”
- Analytical Labs, staffed by PhD scientists, use advanced techniques like microscopy and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) to troubleshoot challenges and improve formulations.
“We examine our compounded resins and material samples at the microscopic level to determine if a problem exists, find the root cause and then develop fast, accurate solutions,” says Ceccarini. “These investigative tools are an important part of our troubleshooting capabilities, as they help guide changes to a formulation or a customer’s manufacturing process. Because many customers don’t have their own in-house tools and scientists, our analytical capabilities add value and increase our credibility.”
- Physical Testing Labs are equipped with advanced machinery not typically available at customer sites to simulate real-world conditions. The results from these tests, which include tensile strength, impact resistance and durability assessments, help verify product strength and durability. They also guide improvements to product design and material selection, which ultimately enhances customer satisfaction and confidence.
“Customers who come here to work with our experts and watch our testing and pilot-scale manufacturing processes tend to keep coming back,” says Schwab. “They recognize the value of collaborating with us to develop product and processing solutions that increase product shelf life, boost processing efficiency and meet tight regulatory standards.”
Experts and industry champions
In addition to our state-of-the-art technologies and comprehensive testing capabilities, our people are another vital asset that sets us apart from other polymer providers. Many of our resident experts have decades of practical application and polymer development experience. Several CTC team members have previous work experience within our customer companies, which gives them an insider’s understanding of the industry’s pressures and goals. That credibility and empathy have earned LYB experts a reputation as material consultants and industry advocates, not just vendors.
Beyond the lab, CTC plays a key role in shaping the future of the polymer and infrastructure industries. Many of our experts actively participate in industry advocacy groups and sit on the steering committees of organizations that write the industry standards for pipe and cable, potable water and packaging, to name a few.
“With this active engagement in industry groups, we see standards changes before our customers do, and we can help steer these standards,” says Kyle Wilkerson, AD/TS engineer. “We can then modify our manufacturing and testing facilities to quickly accommodate and meet these new standards, all while keeping our customers’ interests front and center.”
Delivering innovation with purpose
At its core, the CTC is more than a research facility—it’s a living embodiment of the LYB mission to create transformative value by listening, collaborating and delivering what customers truly need.
With world-class technologies, experienced application experts and a relentless focus on customer outcomes, CTC ensures that LYB will remain both a polymer leader and a trusted innovation partner for years to come.