In The News
The Changing Face of Maintenance
Connected enterprises and intelligent instrumentation promote predictive maintenance and improve reliability Process reliability is one of the most important factors in achieving a profit for producers in the chemical process industries (CPI). However, maintenance departments in these facilities deal with…
Ethanol from CO2
Scientists at the U.S. DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) have developed an electrochemical process that directly produces ethanol from CO2. The researchers used a catalyst consisting of copper nanoparticles embedded in carbon spikes, and applied voltage to…
Commercial MOFs on the horizon
A partnership between materials company NuMat Technologies (Skokie, Ill.; www.numat-tech.com) and The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.the-linde-group.com) is set to bring metal-organic-framework (MOF) materials into the mainstream industrial-gas sector. Touted for their extremely high surface area and adsorption capacity, MOFs…
Plasma oxidation disinfects water without the addition of chemicals
A new technology that uses plasma to kill bacteria and simultaneously oxidize organic material in water systems offers a non-chemical alternative to water treatment in several industry sectors, such as food and beverage, power generation, oil and gas and others.…
Business News for October 2016
Plant Watch BASF expands global production capacity of Ultrason polyarylsulfone September 8, 2016— BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will set up an additional production line for Ultrason polyarylsulfone at its site in Yeosu, Korea. The new line will start up…
Ethics Survey Results: Your Responses
Responses from 2015 CE ethics survey range from hopeful to cynical, and both similarities and differences emerge when compared to earlier surveys In October 2015, Chemical Engineering conducted a survey among chemical process industries (CPI) professionals about workplace ethics and…
A Japanese consortium begins a five-year, large-scale carbon-capture project
Toshiba Corp. (www.toshiba.co.jp), Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc. (MHIR; both Tokyo, Japan; www.mizuho-ir.co.jp) and 11 other industrial and academic partners have been selected to carry out a five-year project, “Demonstration of Sustainable CCS Technology Project,” sponsored by Japan’s Ministry…
Chemical Safety: A Challenging Road Ahead
Passage of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act has created a long and challenging road ahead for U.S. EPA rulemaking On June 22, 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (LCSA) was signed into law with…
This new, dual-pressure nitric-acid process is commercially available
Last month, Weatherly Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of KBR Inc. (Houston; www.kbr.com) introduced its new dual-pressure nitric acid (DPNA) technology, which enables economically viable production of HNO3 in large scale [over 1,000 metric tons per day (m.t./d)], as part…
Modeling and Simulation Go Beyond Design
More intuitive software allows new users to address optimization and complex tasks Modeling and simulation software is finding more use in chemical processing facilities because software vendors are making it easier to use and, therefore, more accessible to a wider…