In The News
Business News: August 2021
Plant Watch Chemours breaks ground on $93-million mining facility in Florida July 14, 2021 — The Chemours Co. (Wilmington, Del.; www.chemours.com) recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new $93-million mining facility in Clay County, Fla. This site will give…
Chementator Briefs
Extracting Li Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, Ltd. (Changwon, South Korea; www.doosanheavy.com) has developed technology for recovering lithium carbonate from waste batteries. Li2CO3 is a key material that is used in batteries in electronic devices, such as laptops and mobile…
Temperature Measurement Gets Smarter and Safer
New innovations in temperature sensors, calibration and associated equipment are helping to keep plants operating reliably and safely Temperature is one of the most important process parameters that needs to be measured and controlled in the chemical process industries (CPI).…
New AI tool allows predictive maintenance on heat transfer fluids
A new predictive analytics tool for heat-transfer-fluid (HTF) life expectancy uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms built around HTF sample analysis data. The tool, known as Fluid Genius, is designed to provide recommendations for extending fluid life and maintaining HTF systems.…
Extraction of plant products with supercritical glycerin
Construction is underway of a prototype system designed to extract natural bioactive product compounds from plants using supercritical glycerin as the extraction solvent. The initial target for the process is to extract cannabidiol (CBD), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other active compounds…
Embedding active enzymes into plastics
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research (IAP; Potsdam-Golm, Germany; www.iap.fraunhofer.de) have developed a process for embedding active enzymes into plastics. This has been difficult before, since plastics are normally processed at temperatures above 100°C. The technology offers…
Business News: July 2021
Plant Watch Huntsman to increase ethylene carbonate production capacity June 14, 2021 — The Performance Products division of Huntsman Corp. (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.huntsman.com) is planning to significantly increase existing production capacity for ethylene carbonate at its Conroe, Texas facility…
Scaling up a recycling process for blended textile fibers
In order to handle the growing volume of waste textile materials, recycling processes must begin significantly scaling up. Lenzing AG (Lenzing, Austria; www.lenzing.com) and Södra (Växjö, Sweden; www.sodra.com) are joining forces to scale up the OnceMore textile-recycling process, which is…
Combine three steps in one unit with this wastewater-treatment process
A cyclic activated-sludge (AS) process, trademarked te-cyc, combines biological treatment and solids settlement in a single treatment step, thereby significantly reducing the footprint compared to a conventional AS plant, which requires three separate processes — primary settlement tanks, aeration tanks…
This carbon-fiber composite material is good at dissipating heat
A technology that increases the heat-dissipating properties of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) to that of metals has been developed by Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toray.com). Applying this technology to CFRP dissipates heat effectively from their sources through thermal conduction paths…