Last month, the Commission on Air Pollution Prevention of the VDI and DIN Standards Committee (Düsseldorf, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5828-544) published a new guideline (VDI 2442), which provides specific information on the design, construction and operation of waste-gas cleaning plants using thermal…
By combining a high-resolution scanning electron microscope and an ion-beam microscope into a single device, researchers at the Max Plank Institute for Iron Research (Düsseldorf, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5828-545) are able to “see” the inner structure of nanomaterials, biological matter, and high-performance…
It’s not a question of whether the world supply of fossil is going to run out; its just a question of when, says professor Colin Webb, head of the chemical engineering department at the University of Manchester (England),…
In today’s global marketplace, multinational companies are almost expected to manufacture products at different sites around the world. Try as they might to build plants that are identical and employ the same procedures, there are no guarantees the results will…
Cartridge trays, defined below, can be the perfect hardware solution for distillation columns that are less than 3 feet (0.9m) in diameter and have a unique need for trays. Packing is usually the preferred choice for small-diameter columns, but there…
For any of us who have kept up in recent years with the business news (happenings at Enron and some major Wall Street firms, say), it seems safe to assume that, nowadays at least, ethical behavior and personal honesty are…
Most chemical processes must produce products that are uniformly mixed. There have been many articles written about preventing particle segregation during bulk solids flow; and ensuring a mass flow pattern is a common suggestion. But mass flow alone is not…
Solvents have been used for centuries and in all type of industries for the processing, manufacturing and formulation of goods. In the chemical process industries (CPI), solvents are used in various process-operation steps such as separation (of gas,…
Depending on their location and on other factors, chemical-process-industries (CPI) plants obtain their process water from a diverse range of sources (see Process Water Supply — the Big Picture, Chem. Eng., May 2005, pp. 32–34.). The water from…
Fuel costs rose sharply in 2005 because of hurricane damage to U.S. interests in the Gulf of Mexico, and international developments in the oil supply market. Competing fuels — coal and natural gas — rose in price in…