Powerful permanent magnets Permanent magnets — materials that create their own persistent magnetic field — are frequently used in most types of electronics, turbines, engines and motors. Currently, nearly all powerful permanent magnets require rare-earth elements (REEs), such as neodymium…
Weeping and flooding phenomena set the vapor velocity in industrial distillation columns. Presented here are procedures for calculating flooding and weeping velocities in a four-pass sieve-tray column In industrial distillation, the term “weeping” is primarily used when the liquid in…
Steam is commonly used across the chemical process industries (CPI) for a variety of end uses, including process heating, mechanical drive, moderation of chemical reactions and fractionation of hydrocarbons. Heat exchangers, turbines, fractionating towers, stripping columns, and reaction vessels are…
Although wastewater streams with high organic content — such as those from breweries and dairy facilities — can be difficult to treat and expensive to dispose of, there is potential to valorize their carbon content with the right process. Based…
The insights reported here will help guide and encourage engineers in facilitating high-quality and effective hazard analyses in their facilities Undertaking and completing a well-planned hazard review might just be the best thing you ever do on a single day…
This packaging film is water soluble EcoSol® is a PVOH (polyvinyl alcohol) film (photo) that dissolves in water in minutes. It can be made into bags, pouches and sachets of many different sizes to create an efficient delivery system for…
Advanced level measurement devices enhanced with intelligence solve CPI challenges Chemical processes often require handling media that is corrosive, flammable, explosive or toxic with wide ranges in temperature and pressure and characteristics that include steam, dust, foam, turbulence and condensation.…
Eighty years ago, in 1944, Dr. Hans Müller from Winterthur, Switzerland filed a patent application for a device designed to process liquid substances at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Bern. Liquids prone to fouling on heated surfaces,…
Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers This conversation started in a course I was presenting in Sydney, Australia. I was about 15 minutes into my presentation when a delegate from a major petroleum refinery stopped me. “How…
Conceptual capital-cost estimates are important for assessing the economic viability of proposed projects, but their usefulness depends on understanding how to appropriately apply the estimates Capital cost estimates are a crucial step in order to make prudent decisions regarding any…