Business & Economics
Employment Outlook
A continued economic contraction remains the dominant feature of the employment landscape for chemical engineers, with fewer job openings and choosier corporate hiring processes, but chemical engineering salaries are strong, according to those closest to the chemical engineering job front.…
Joseph Acker retires as SOCMA CEO….
Hester Koch Shankland Ragosta Blinn Swagelok Company (Solon, Ohio) names David Hester general manager of Swagelok Ltd. (Isle of Man, U.K.). Joseph Acker retires as president and CEO of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA; Washington, D.C.), effective…
Compressed Gases: Managing Cylinders Safely
Compressed gas cylinders are widely used in research, pilot plant, laboratory and small-scale manufacturing and processing operations as a way to provide a convenient, economical and safe source of high-pressure gases for various applications. These gases can be inert, flammable,…
Energy Efficiency: Tracking Natural Gas With Flowmeters
Thermal mass flowmeters provide advantages over other options for metering the consumption of natural gas by individual combustion units throughout the facility With today’s increased emphasis on strategic energy management, many throughout the chemical process industries (CPI) and elsewhere are…
Intergraph releases SmartPlant Construction
Intergraph (Huntsville, Ala.; www.intergraph.com) has just released SmartPlant Construction, a new SmartPlant Enterprise software module created specifically for process, power and marine firms to more efficiently plan and manage plant, ship and offshore construction, resulting in increased productivity, accelerated project completion,…
Lurgi starts up new H2 plant in Poland
Lurgi GmbH (Frankfurt, Germany; www.lurgi.com) has delivered, in less that 29 months, a new hydrogen unit to Grupa Lotos S.A.’s (www.lotos.pl) petroleum refinery in Gdansk, Poland. The plant designed and built on an EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) basis, went on stream…
Wacker exits solar-wafer business
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) exits from the solar wafer business and will transfer its shares in its joint venture Wacker Schott Solar GmbH (WSS) to its former partner Schott Solar AG. Wacker and Schott Solar have reached agreement…
BASF and CSM to develop biobased succinic acid
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and CSM N.V. (Diemen, the Netherlands; www.csm.nl) today announced the cooperation between their respective subsidiaries BASF Future Business GmbH and Purac for the development of the production of biobased succinic acid. Both partners have been working…
CSB reports its conclusions on the causes of massive sugar explosions
In a final draft report released today, U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB; www.csb.gov) investigators said the February 7, 2008, explosion at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Ga., resulted from ongoing releases of sugar from inadequately designed and maintained…
Energy efficiency is least-expensive utility resource available, report says
Saving a kilowatt-hour through energy-efficiency improvements costs one-third or less than the cost of any new source of electricity supply, according to a new report from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE; Washington, D.C.). Costs for…