In a move designed to take account of the shift to lighter cracker feed, German industrial gases producer Linde is teaming up with BASF to develop and license processes for on-purpose production of linear butenes and butadiene.

The German chemical group will contribute the process technology and catalysts as well as the extraction technologies, while Linde's engineering arm will be in charge of integration, optimization and commercialization of the process.

Linde and BASF said the new process will deliver an on-purpose route from butane to butadiene via butenes.

Currently, the industry relies mainly on butadiene as a co-product from naphtha-cracking to ethylene, but as the shift to light feed reduces co-product volumes, on-purpose production of higher olefins is gaining more and more importance, the partners noted.

The new BASF technology is currently being developed by mini plant and pilot plant operation in Ludwigshafen.