Patent ID: 8303899

Claim:
A polyolefin manufacturing system, comprising: a polymerization reactor configured to produce a slurry comprising polyolefin particles and diluent; a flash chamber configured to receive the slurry and separate a majority of the diluent from the polyolefin particles to produce a flash stream comprising separated diluent, and a solids stream comprising the polyolefin particles and residual diluent; a purge column configured to receive the solids stream directly from the flash chamber, generate a discharge stream comprising the residual diluent, feed the discharge stream to a fractionation system, and generate a fluff stream comprising the polyolefin particles; an extruder configured to receive the fluff stream from the purge column and extrude the polyolefin particles to form extruded polyolefin, wherein the purge column is configured to feed the fluff stream to the extruder; and a pelletizer configured to pelletize the extruded polyolefin to produce polyolefin pellets.