Patent ID: 8569433

Claim:
A method for operating a polyolefin manufacturing process, comprising: polymerizing a monomer in a polymerization reactor to produce a slurry comprising polyolefin particles and diluent; separating a majority of the diluent from the polyolefin particles of the slurry in a flash chamber to produce a flash stream comprising separated diluent, and a solids stream comprising the polyolefin particles and residual diluent; purging the solids stream in a purge column to generate a discharge stream comprising the residual diluent, and to generate a fluff stream comprising the polyolefin particles, wherein the purge column receives the solids stream directly from the flash chamber; feeding the discharge stream from the purge column to a fractionation system; extruding the polyolefin particles of the fluff stream in an extruder to form extruded polyolefin; and pelletizing the extruded polyolefin in a pelletizer to produce polyolefin pellets.