ICL’s Spanish subsidiary, ICL Iberia (Catalonia, Spain) and AkzoNobel (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the longterm production and marketing of vacuum salt and white potash. The MOU calls for the production and…
On July 8, Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) formally commenced operations at a new hydrogen peroxide plant in Jilin, China. The new production plant has an annual capacity of 230,000 metric tons (m.t.). Evonik has invested over one hundred…
On the South Campus of Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin; www.tu-berlin.de), BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) together with the Cluster of Excellence “Unifying Concepts in Catalysis” (UniCat; www.unicat.tu-berlin.de) today opened the new BasCat Laboratory building (www.bascat.tu-berlin.de). On about 1,000 square…
Nippon Shokubai Co. (Osaka, Japan; www.shokubai.co.jp) held an opening ceremony for various new facilities at its Himeji Plant site, including new production plants for acrylic acid and n-phenylmaleimide (PMI), as well as a new liquid incinerator. The new acrylic acid…
Kemira Oyj (Helsinki, Finland; www.kemira.com) has reached a preliminary agreement to acquire AkzoNobel's global paper chemicals business. The parties will also enter into a distribution agreement for AkzoNobel's colloidal silica business for retention and drainage applications for the paper industry.…
Washington Penn Plastic Co., Inc. (Washington, Pa; www.washingtonpennplastic.com) has concluded an agreement with ExxonMobil Chemical Company (EMC; Houston, Tex.; www.exxonmobilchemical.com) to purchase and license assets of EMC’s North American specialty compounded polypropylene (PP) products business, following EMC’s decision to cease…
An affiliate of ExxonMobil (Irving, Tex., www.exxonmobil.com), Esso Belgium, a division of ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical B.V.B.A., announced that it plans to install a new delayed coker unit at its Antwerp refinery to convert heavy, higher sulfur residual oils into…
GE Power & Water (Schenectady, N.Y.; www.gepower.com) has announced that it has agreed to acquire Monsal (Mansfield, U.K.; www.monsal.com), a private water, waste, advanced anaerobic digestion and integrated biogas-to-energy business.

With Monsal’s advanced anaerobic digestion technology and industry knowledge, GE will…
The preliminary value for the April CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; the most recent available) rose 0.4% from the final March value, after dropping the previous month. The gain was mostly due to a rise in the Equipment subindex. The…
Process Heat Transfer: Principles, Applications and Rules of Thumb. 2nd ed. By Robert Serth and Thomas Lestina. Elsevier Inc., 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02144. Web: elsevier.com. 2014. 632 pages. $120.00. Engineering Plastics. By T.R. Crompton. Smithers Rapra Publishing,…