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A new surge for coal gasification

    Following the dramatic upswing in the global energy prices in the past few years, interest in coal gasification as an "indirect" means of converting coal to power, transportation fuels and chemicals has been gaining new impetus. Environmental considerations,…

On our minds recently

As chemical process technology and the process industries advance, it can be useful to occasionally glance backward, to see what technical issues have preoccupied our readers in the past. In that vein, this is an apt moment to look back…

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Silo Design And Selection

    There are a variety of reasons to consider the purchase of a new tank or silo1. As organizations grow, so does the need for increased storage capacity. Meanwhile, an old tank may become corroded or worn and require…

A milestone for a new solid-acid alkylation process

Exelus Inc. (Livingston, N.J.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-533) has demonstrated the performance of its ExSact solid-acid alkylation process, having achieved over 1,000 hours of pilot-plant operation on an untreated MTBE raffinate feedstock. The pilot-plant testing was performed to prove the robustness of the…

An improved production process for solar-cell Si

With the aim to commercialize a new process for making solar-cell grade (SOG) silicon, Chisso Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-534) is negotiating the possibility of establishing a joint-venture company with Nippon Mining Holdings, Inc. (Tokyo) and Toho Titanium Co., Ltd. (Chigasaki,…

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Coal-to-plastics

Datang International Power Generation Co. Ltd. and Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group (SNCG; both China) have awarded a contract in excess of €100 million to Lurgi AG (Frankfurt, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-535) as part of two projects (€1 billion per project) for…

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Markup languages

The World Batch Forum (WBF; St. Louis, Missouri; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-542) has released new versions of its two, XML-based markup languages for implementing the ANSI/ISA S88 and S95 standards and their international countrerparts IEC-61512 and IEC/ISO-62264. Enhancements in Version 2.0 of WBF’s…

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A new thermoplastic

GE Plastics (Pittsfield, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-543) has launched Extem thermoplastic polyimide (TPI) resins, a new family of amorphous polymers. The new resin is said to overcome the drawbacks of semicrystalline materials, imidized thermosets and competitive amorphous thermoplastics. Among Extem resin’s properties…

Green chemistry

Last month, after just two years, Maaike Kroon completed her Ph.D. from the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-544) for developing a sustainable and inexpensive production process that enables reaction and separation operations to be performed in the same vessel.…

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Interoperability in control systems

Samson AG (Frankfurt, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-545) has started to implement the Vigilant Integration Partners (VIP) initiative, having entered a formal cooperation agreement with Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-546). The VIP initiative is an open and non-exclusive mutual technology cooperation program to…