Business & Economics
Alstom establishes carbon capture unit with Lummus acquisition
Alstom (Levallois-Perret, France; www.alstom.com) has established a new unit, Alstom Carbon Capture GmbH, with the acquisition of the former Lummus Global. The newly minted unit has over 100 employees, and will be integrated into Alstom's existing carbon-capture-systems activities. The new…
Solvay increases NaHCO3 production in Italy
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) today announces that its sodium bicarbonate production capacity extension at its Rosignano site, Italy, successfully started production. With this expansion, Rosignano will become the world’s biggest sodium bicarbonate production plant with a yearly capacity of 250,000…
Outotec & HDO: alumina refinery technology to India
Outotec Oyj (Helsinki, Finland; www.outotec.com) and Hindustan Dorr-Oliver Ltd. (HDO; Mumbai, India; www.hdo.in) have signed a contract with Anrak Aluminium Ltd. to provide clarification and red-mud-washing technologies as well as services for Anrak’s alumina refinery in Andhra Pradesh, India. The combined…
Al-Waha starts up new PP plant
Al-Waha Petrochemical Co. (Dubai, UAE) has successfully started up its new complex in Al-Jubail Industrial City which includes a 450,000 ton/yr polypropylene (PP) plant based on LyondellBasell’s (www.lyondellbasell.com) Spherizone process technology. Al-Waha was formed in 2006 and is a joint…
Linde to invest in largest ASU in India
The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) today announced it will build and commission a state-of-the-art 2,550 metric ton per day (m.t./d) air separation unit (ASU) at Tata Steel Ltd’s plant in Jamshedpur, India. Tata Steel is one of the world’s…
Patent granted on microfluidic device design
Integrated Sensing Systems, Inc. (ISSYS; Ypsilanti, Mich.; www.mems-issys.com) announced that the U.S. Patent Office has granted it a utility patent (US 7,581,429) “Microfluidic Device and Method of Operation.” According to Dr. Doug Sparks, executive vice-president of ISSYS, this patent describes…
Celanese to expand emulsions in China
Celanese Corp. (Dallas, Tex.; www.celanese.com) today announced it is expanding its vinyl acetate/ethylene (VAE) manufacturing facility at its Nanjing, China, integrated chemical complex. The investment will support continued growth plans for the Celanese Emulsion Polymers business throughout Asia, including China,…
A push for advanced cellulose-ethanol technology
The ChemPro Group, LLC (Boonton, N.J.; www.thechemprogroup.com) and Mo-Fuel (Rural Bio-waste; Sikeston, Missouri), have formed an alliance to commercialize a patented process that will economically and efficiently produce ethanol from cellulose feedstocks. According to Steve Lavorerio, president of ChemPro, the…
Shifting the world to 100% renewable energy by 2030?
Wind, water and solar energy resources are sufficiently available to provide all the world's energy. Converting to electricity and hydrogen powered by these sources would reduce world power demand by 30%, thereby avoiding 13,000 coal power plants. Materials and costs…
Gazprom subsidiary places order with Lurgi
Gazprom Komplektatsiya LLC (a Gazprom subsidiary) has launched an investment program to increase the octane number of the existing gasoline production and also the profitability of its refinery located in Astrakhan, Russia, on the coast of the Caspian Sea. The…