Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) plans to build a new state-of-the-art facility to manufacture vanillin in Zhenjiang City, in China's Jiangsu Province, boosting its production capacities by 40% and enabling the Group to better serve the fast-growing Asian market. Solvay…
Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.; www.eastman.com) broke ground on a capacity increase for its Therminol heat transfer fluids. The plant expansion, located in Newport, Wales, will be a new manufacturing facility capable of producing Therminol 66 and other biphenyl-based co-products.…
Siemens Industry, Inc. (Erlangen, Germany; www.siemens.com/industry) announced it has completed the acquisition of Service Guide, Inc. (Cortland, Ohio), a company that has provided repair and refurbishing services for steel and aluminum mills since 1964. The agreement includes three of the…
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) was awarded by the Hyundai-Wison consortium a significant contract to supply its proprietary technology as well as engineering and procurement services for two hydrogen reformers in Venezuela. These 135-million standard cubic feet per day (151,000 Nm3/h)…
Virent (Madison, Wisc.; www.virent.com) announced it has received a federal award of up to $4 million, subject to final contract negotiations with the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) , to develop carbon conversion efficiency of biomass to…
Preliminary data for the April 2013 CE Plant Cost Index (CEPCI; the most recent available) indicate that the composite index increased by 0.2% compared to the final March value, reversing three consecutive decreases in the months prior. The higher numbers…
Distillation Design and Control Using Aspen Simulation. 2nd ed. By William Luyben. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Web: wiley.com. 2013. 489 pages. $130.00. Engineering Material 2: An Introduction to Microstructures and Processing. 4th ed.…
Polyethylene (PE) is the world’s largest-volume commodity polymer. Along with high-density (HDPE) and low-density (LDPE) polyethylene, linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) is one of the three main types of PE. The global market for LLDPE is over 20 million metric tons…
Plant Watch Uhde Inventa-Fischer to build commercial-scale Nofia plant June 12, 2013 — Uhde Inventa-Fischer AG (Berlin, Germany and Domat/Ems, Switzerland; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) has won a contract to build the world’s first commercial-scale plant for production of Nofia, a flame retardant…
Hughey Joy Iafigliola Rochas Yuille Hovione (Loures, Portugal), a developer of active pharmaceutical ingredients and drug-product intermediates, appoints Justin Hughey , to lead the particle-design sciences team at its New Jersey site. Bayer MaterialScience LLC (Pittsburgh, Pa.) names…