Business & Economics
ICL and AkzoNobel to collaborate on potash and salt operations in Spain
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…
Evonik’s new hydrogen peroxide plant officially opened in Jilin
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…
New BasCat Laboratory opens at TU Berlin
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 opens expanded facilities for acrylic acid and PMI
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 to acquire paper chemicals business from AkzoNobel
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 to purchase assets of ExxonMobil’s specialty PP compounding business
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…
ExxonMobil invests in new coker unit at Belgium refinery
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 to acquire Monsal
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…
Recently published books for the chemical process industries (CPI)
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,…
Finding the Balance in Packaging
The word “sustainability” is used a lot, but for many businesses and industries it is increasingly becoming a challenge that must be taken seriously. As customers, large retailers and end-users continue to demand sustainable practices, packaging and products from their…