AkzoNobel’s Specialty Chemicals business (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) is studying plans to expand production of high-purity vacuum salt at its Delfzijl site in the Netherlands. The project would increase output at the facility by around 25%. The ongoing study is…
Celanese Corporation (Dallas, Tex.; www.celanese.com) announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Celanese to acquire Omni Plastics and its subsidiaries, including the distributor Resinal de Mexico. Omni Plastics is headquartered and has a compounding facility in Evansville, Indiana, with…
W.R. Grace & Co. (Columbia, Md.; www.grace.com) today signed an agreement to acquire the Polyolefin Catalysts business of Albemarle Corporation (Charlotte, N.C.; www.albemarle.com) for $416 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018, subject to…
Global Bioenergies (Evry, France; www.global-bioenergies.com) announced the start of the scale-up phase of a process converting renewable resources into acetone and isopropanol. The markets for both these 3-carbon compounds are well established and worth billions of dollars. In a further…
Axens (Rueill-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) has completed the expansion of its Calvert City, Kentucky manufacturing plant to produce its industry leading Impulse hydroprocessing catalysts Series in North America. Impulse is a complete range of high performance Hydrotreating catalysts offering flexibility and…
Veolia’s (Paris, France; www.veolia.com) V recycling and waste recovery business in France has been awarded a nine-year contract worth €95 million to improve the Reims energy-recovery plant. Treating the 60,000 metric tons (m.t.) of final waste generated each year by…
Compact Membrane Systems (CMS; Newport, Del.; www.compactmembrane.com) announced a pilot of its new Optiperm olefins-separation technology with DowDuPont. The project will field test Optiperm membranes, with the ultimate goal of testing a demonstration-size unit with membrane area greater than 100…
As with many industries, turbomachinery is experiencing a shift toward all things digital. The two main results of the digitalization trend are that turbomachinery providers are now able to improve how their own factories operate, but also help their customers…
Managing load-sharing controls for compressors was one of several topics explored by a group during several group discussions that took place on December 13 at the Turbomachinery Symposium in Houston. While the discussion was prompted by a participant’s question…
Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) cycles—which are inching closer to commercial applications for waste heat recovery, concentrating solar power, nuclear, and fossil energy—offer higher thermal efficiencies and power density than conventional steam Rankine and Air Brayton cycles in use today for…