Industrial Validation of Green Hydrogen for Polypropylene Production: Process Stability, Catalyst Performance, and Product Quality

The transition toward lower-carbon polyolefin manufacturing requires evaluating whether renewable hydrogen can be used in industrial polypropylene production while maintaining acceptable process operation and product quality. In this study, an industrial gas-phase polypropylene production campaign that used electrolytic hydrogen was assessed using statistical and multivariate analyses. A dataset comprising 1441 process observations and more than 100 laboratory measurements was analyzed to characterize process variability, catalyst-feed stability, fouling behavior, and polypropylene quality. The monitored variables included the H2/C3, triethylaluminum-to-titanium selectivity-control-agent-to-titanium (TEAL/Ti), SCA/Ti, and TEAL/SCA ratios, production rate, reactor pressure, distributor-plate pressure drop, recycle-system variables, and fouling indicators. Product quality was evaluated through melt flow index, xylene solubles, bulk density, and residual catalyst species. Descriptive statistics, temporal analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis, and principal component analysis were applied to identify the main sources of operational variability and their relationships with product quality. During the evaluated campaign, the process maintained an average production rate of 30.62 ± 0.69 t h−1, with low variability in the principal catalyst-feed ratios. The polypropylene exhibited an average melt flow index of 2.10 ± 0.11 g/10 min and a xylene-soluble content of 1.19 ± 0.08 wt.%, both within the specifications considered for the commercial grade produced. Temporal analysis of variance identified catalyst ratios, hydrogen utilization, and production rate as the variables with the largest temporal effects, whereas the distributor-plate fouling factor showed comparatively limited variation. The first two principal components explained 58.99% of the total process variance, with hydrogen utilization, catalyst-related variables, reactor pressure, and space–time yield among the dominant contributors. These results provide industrial-scale evidence that electrolytic hydrogen can be integrated into the investigated polypropylene process while maintaining stable operation and specification-compliant product quality during the evaluated period. However, because no parallel or matched campaign using fossil-derived hydrogen was available under the same plant, catalyst, grade, and operating conditions, the present results should not be interpreted as demonstrating full equivalence or direct replacement of conventional hydrogen. Instead, the study establishes an operational baseline and a multivariate monitoring framework for future comparative validation of the use of renewable hydrogen in polyolefin manufacturing.