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Business & Economics

Ethics, Part 2: Survey Results  

For the mainstream media, stories about persons guided by their pocketbooks or hormones instead of ethical principles make fodder for front-page news. Although chemical engineers are not exempt from scandals, a poor ethical decision in the chemical process industries (CPI)…

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Bioethanol

Genencor, the enzymes division of Danisco A/S (Copenhagen; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6900-544) and DONG Energy (Fredericia, both Denmark) are collaborating to produce second-generation bioethanol. Public subsidies are being sought for establishing a demonstration plant, which will process 4 m.t./h of straw and produce…

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Degussa name change

The Chemical Business Area of Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6900-542) is the new identity of what was formerly known as Degussa. The other two business areas of Evonik Industries are energy and real estate. The German coal-mining operations will…

September Who’s Who

ABB (Norwalk, Conn.) appoints Enrique Santacana as region manager of ABB North America and president and chief executive officer of ABB Inc. Tim Schilz is appointed by Aquasensors (Brookfield, Wis.) to director of sales and marketing. Aveva (Cambridge, England) promotes…

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September Plant Watch & Business News

Plant Watch Petrochina selects Axens for clean fuels projects August 2, 2007 — PetroChina selected Axens’ desulfurization technology for the production of clean gasoline in two of its gasoline-producing complexes. The Jinxi Petrochemical Complex in Liaoning Province will install a…

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Eastman plans a dramatic increase in chemicals production from syngas

Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-534), which has been producing chemicals via coal gasification (flowsheet) since 1983, will build a $l.6-billion plant in Beaumont, Tex., that will roughly quintuple the size of its current production of chemicals from synthesis gas.…

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ABB divests Lummus

ABB (Zurich, Switzerland; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-546) has agreed to sell its Lummus Global business to Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (CB&I; The Woodlands, Tex.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-547) for an enterprise value of $950 million on a debt and cash free basis, subject to…

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Butyl rubber

ExxonMobil Chemical (Houston, Tex.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-543) has commercialized a new process for making butyl rubber at its Notre Dame de Gravenchon plant in France. The company declines to give details on the process, but says it is more energy-efficient than the…

September Bookshelf

Fundamentals of Industrial Catalytic Processes, Second Edition. By C.H. Bartholomew and R.J. Farrauto. John Wiley & Sons, 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ. Web: wiley.com. 2006. 966 pages. $99.95 Reviewed by Richard D. Newman, Ph.D., CRI Catalyst Company, Houston, Tex. This…

Further scaleup for a ‘downer’ FCC process

In order to confirm the performance of its proprietary, high-severity fluid-catalytic-cracking (HS-FCC) process, Nippon Oil Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-533) plans to build a new confirmation-test plant at its Mizushima, Japan, refinery. The unit will have a treating capacity of 3,000…