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Business News: June 2022

Plant Watch Petrobras to construct new diesel hydrotreating unit at Replan refinery May 12, 2022 — Petrobras (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; www.petrobras.com.br) announced that it signed a contract with the Toyo Setal HDT Paulínia Consortium, formed by the companies TSE…

Weighing and Dosing

Pressure compensation ups accuracy in LIW feeders Loss-in-weight (LIW) feeder performance is dependent on accurate weighing, which can be affected by a variety of influences. In a closed system, pressure variations, such as backpressure from a downstream mixer or extruder…

Accelerate product development and small-batch production

A new flexible digital-manufacturing process for product development and small-batch production of liquid silicone rubber (LSR) parts — iCast LSR (photo) — enables manufacturers to develop product variations or try out different design concepts before investing in serial production tools.…

Drought emphasizes water scarcity

A megadrought in the U.S. Southwest has triggered emergency measures to be taken, as both water and hydroelectric power supplies to millions of people are threatened. The water levels in the two largest human-made reservoirs in the U.S., Lake Mead…

Relaunching a process that uses 100% H2 for the direct reduction of iron ore

Developed two decades ago, Metso Outotec’s (MO; Helsinki, Finland; www.mogroup.com) Circored process is now being reintroduced as a proven way to help decarbonize the ironmaking process. Developed in the 1990s by the former Lurgi Metallurgie (now part of MO) and…

An Ounce of Prevention: Cybersecurity and the CPI

As the frequency and sophistication of industrial cyberattacks continue to rise, chemical companies can follow guidance from industry and government directives to help define their organization’s specific cyber-risk profile Cybersecurity risk is a key topic for all companies, due, in…

Rugged enclosures available for medium-voltage drives

PowerFlex 6000 medium-voltage variable frequency drives (VFDs; photo) packaged in Type 3R or IP54 enclosures are specifically designed and built for outdoor or remote installations to eliminate the need for a control room. The PowerFlex 6000 drive technology is suited…

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Tower Doctor: Can Trash Interfere With a Cure?

Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers Construction of new production units has an undesirable byproduct: trash. Sometimes the hard question is­— Who will clean? The author was the startup superintendent on a new unit in an olefins…

New midsize models and features added in this PSA range

The NGP+ series of pressure-swing-adsorption (PSA) nitrogen generators (photo) is expanding with the introduction of two new models — the NGP 160+ and NGP 200+. The generators offer gas purity from 95% to 99.9995%, with flowrates up to 4,802 std.…

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Improve Energy Efficiency Using Heat Pumps

Heat pumps are an efficient way to provide space and process heating. Information on their types, and how to assess their potential benefits is provided here Approximately 40% of the energy that is used in buildings in the U.S. goes…