Most chemical engineers involved with operating large chemical process facilities have encountered the following challenge: Several large engineering contractors built the facility in multiple phases, using different computer-software models. Retrieving drawings or data in both digital and non-digital form in…
At a reception Tuesday evening, Chemical Engineering announced this year’s finalists and the winner of the 2009 Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award, a biennial prize that the magazine has bestowed continuously since the early 1930s. The award recognizes the most…
Carbone Lorraine (CL; Paris, France; Booth 450) recently launched a new welded-plate heat exchanger, dubbed Heatex, which features plates made of tantalum CL-Clad. The patented CL-Clad technology involves the brazing of steel onto “reactive” metals, such as tantalum, titanium and…
In the world of chemical processing there are times when standard particle analysis equipment, which provides information about the number of particles and their spherical diameter, just isn’t enough. For these applications, imaging particle analysis goes above and beyond to…
Crossflow (CF) filtration is widely used for separating substances with poor filtration properties. As the method’s name implies, a crossflow of the feed continuously flows across the filter membrane in order to wash away material accumulations that clog the membrane…
Among the most pressing concerns for the chemical process industries (CPI) are weathering the global economic recession and dealing with anticipated carbon emissions regulations. Switching from oil and gas to biomass for fuel in a CPI plant is a relatively…
Security at many U.S. chemical facilities is regulated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS; Washington, D.C.; http://www.dhs.gov) under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS). Proposed modifications to this regulation are being debated in the U.S. Congress. In fact,…
For wastewater treatment, membrane bioreactors (MBRs) provide superior effluent quality in a small footprint compared to alternative activated-sludge treatment methods. However, MBRs are prone to fouling, and thus may require frequent membrane cleaning with the associated manpower and chemical costs.…
Tantaline (Lyngby, Demnark; http://www.tantaline.com; Booth 645) has developed a process that creates a surface alloy of tantalum on a metal substrate (typically stainless steel). As a result, the surface acquires the corrosion resistance of tantalum — the most corrosion resistant…
An introduction to the Victaulic Vortex 1000 fire suppression system will be presented on Tuesday from 3 to 3:30 p.m. in Theater A. The system is the world’s first hybrid nitrogen and water system, and claims to offer a completely…