In collaboration with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo, Japan; www.mhi-global.com), Haldor Topsøe A/S (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) has been selected for the design of a new ammonia plant for a major fertilizer project in Turkmenistan. The project has been awarded…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) is investing in its German operations with new large- scale industrial plants, capacity expansions, and new research centers. The company plans to invest some €2 billion of the extensive investment program it has developed…
KBR Inc. (Houston; www.kbr.com) has been awarded a reimbursable contract by Koch Nitrogen Company, LLC to provide engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for a new grassroots urea plant, part of a $1.3-billion expansion project by Koch Nitrogen at its…
Crystal Solar Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.; www.xstalsolar.com) is preparing for high-volume production of silicon wafers using a process that forms the wafers directly from trichlorosilane (TCS) gas using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) epitaxy process that can significantly lower the…
Whether the application is reactive extrusion, pharmaceutical manufacturing, compounding or plastics processing, finding the sweet spot where increased efficiency, flexibility and lower capital expenditures are well balanced is the holy grail of today’s extruder operations. Most industries that employ extrusion…
Edeniq Inc. (Visalia, Calif.; www.edeniq.com) announced progress in building demonstration facilities in Brazil and China that feature the company’s proprietary process for converting cellulosic biomass into industrial sugar for fermentation or catalytic conversion (diagram). In Brazil’s São Paulo state, Edeniq…
The chemical process industries (CPI) have experienced many benefits from the so-called shale-gas boom — recent years have seen an unprecedented rise in construction and expansion activity in the petrochemicals sector. Shown in Figure 1 is construction at the Freeport,…
CO2-to-syngas . . . Scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago ( www.uic.edu) have developed a catalytic system — molybdenum disulfide and an ionic liquid — to convert CO2 into synthesis gas, (syngas; a mixture of CO and…
Plant Watch Jacobs awarded contract for ExxonMobil projects in Baytown and Mont Belvieu August 12, 2014 — Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Pasadena, Calif.; www.jacobs.com) was awarded a contract from ExxonMobil Chemical Co. to provide engineering, procurement and construction services as…
A microfluidic, paper-based analytical device (µPAD) — in conjunction with confirmation by a “lab-on-a-chip” analysis — was developed for detection of three explosives (trinitro aromatics) by a team from the University of Technology Sydney (Sydney, Australia; www.uts.edu.au), the University of…