Foster Wheeler Ltd. (Hamilton, Bermuda; www.fwc.com) announced today that its Finnish subsidiary Foster Wheeler Energia Oy, part of its Global Power Group, has been awarded a contract by Prokon Nord Energiesysteme GmbH for a 26-MWe, circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) steam generator…
SKC (Seoul, Korea; www.skc.kr/skhp/en/index.jsp), the leading propylene oxide (PO) and polyester film producer in Korea, announced today that its new PO plant in Ulsan successfully started the world’s first commercial production of PO based on the hydrogen-peroxide propylene-oxide (HPPO) process.…
Specialty chemicals supplier Cognis (Monheim, Germany; www.cognis.com) today announced the sale of its 50-% stake in the Cognis Oleochemicals joint venture (JV) to PTT Chemical International Private Ltd. (PTT Chemical International), a Singapore based wholly owned subsidiary of PTT Chemical…
The Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Co. (Takreer, United Arab Emirates; www.takreer.com) has awarded the Shaw Group Inc. (Baton Rouge, La.; www.shawgrp.com) a process license technology package that will include four Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) technologies along with the world’s largest…
Petrom S.A. of Romania has commissioned Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany; www.uhde.biz) to build a gasoline desulphurization plant at its refinery located in Brazi, some 50km north of Bucharest. This clean-fuels plant is scheduled to come on-stream in early 2009 with…
The use of palladium on carbon powder supports (Pd-CP) has traditionally been a commercially viable means of catalyzing deprotection reactions, despite also requiring substantive quantities of precious metal and limiting the selection of solvents due to low hydrogenation activity. However,…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7374-542) has developed a new class of enzymes, called enoate reductases, which can be used for the asymmetric synthesis of chiral intermediates, such as esters and aldehydes. The modified biocatalysts, which the company has patented, are…
Chemists at Stanford University (Calif.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7374-543) have constructed a field-effect transistor (FET) with graphene that can operate at room temperature. Previous graphene FET demonstrations have been performed at liquid helium temperature (4K). The researchers were able to make 10-nm wide…
Researchers at TU Delft (edlinks.chemengonline.com/7374-544) and the FOM Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (Utrecht, both Netherlands) have demonstrated the so-called avalanch effect, where a single photon of light can release more than one electron within a semiconductor crystal. The…
Industrial designer Tore Christian Bjørsvik at Sintef Health Research (Trondheim, Norway; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7374-545) has developed a safety helmet with a soft, flexible inner layer that instantly becomes a hard shock absorber if the helmet is subjected to impact. The helmet also…