Polybutene

Polybutene is an organic polymer made from a mixture of 1-butene, 2-butene, and isobutylene. Ethylene steam cracker C4s are also used as supplemental feed for polybutene. It is similar to polyisobutylene (PIB), which is produced from essentially pure isobutylene made in a C4 complex of a major refinery. The presence of isomers other than isobutylene can have several effects including: 1) lower reactivity due to steric hindrance at the terminal carbon in, e.g., manufacture of polyisobutenyl succinic anhydride (PIBSA) dispersant manufacture; 2) the molecular weight—viscosity relationships of the two materials may also be somewhat different.^[1]