Paraxylene & PTA

Platinum is used in the production of paraxylene (PX). Paraxylene is widely used as a feedstock (or “building block”) to manufacture other industrial chemicals, notably terephthalic acid (TPA), purified terephthalic acid (PTA) and dimethyl-terephthalate (DMT).

For the production of puriefied trephthalic acid, a palladium catalyst is used.

TPA, PTA and DMT are used to manufacture polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polyesters, used for plastics and polyester textiles.