Business & Economics
Linde seals long-term gas contract with Corus in the UK
The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) has signed a long-term supply contract for industrial gases with international steel producer Corus, part of Tata Steel. The agreement involves the construction of a new air separation unit (ASU) at Corus’ Scunthorpe site…
Chementator: A New Offshore GTL Production System Takes Advantage of Microchannel Reactors
Toyo Engineering Corp. (TEC; Narashino, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-532), Modec Inc. (Tokyo, both Japan) and Velocys Inc., (Plain City, Ohio) have agreed to jointly develop a commercial gas-to-liquid (GTL) plant to be installed on a mobile platform or ship for monetizing small-to-medium…
Chementator: This CO2 -Recovery Process Set to Enhance EOR
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-533) is marketing a new process that captures carbon dioxide from flue gas (FG) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The KM-CDR process uses a proprietary amine-based solvent (KS-1) in a packed column to…
Chementator: This Solar Reactor Will Recycle Carbon Dioxide
A prototype solar reactor that will break carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen, or split water into hydrogen and oxygen, will be started up this spring by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, N.M.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-535). The ultimate goal of…
Chementator: Commercialization Is Set for a Fischer-Tropsch Process
Rentech, Inc. (Los Angeles, Calif.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-537) will build its first commercial synthetic fuels plant, using the company’s proprietary Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, near Natchez, Miss. The plant will gasify locally purchased petroleum coke or barged-in coal, along with at least 5%…
Chementator: Gas-to-Polypropylene
Basell Corp. (Frankfurt, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-540), the National Gas Co. of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), Ltd. (NGC) and the National Energy Corp. of T&T, Ltd. (NEC; both Point Lisas, Port of Spain) have entered a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to construct…
Chementator: Fuel from CO2
UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-542) has partnered with the University of Southern California’s (USC) Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute (Los Angeles; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-543) to develop and commercialize new technology to transform carbon dioxide into clean-burning alternative fuels. USC developed fundamental chemistry…
Chementator: Algae-to-fuel
Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (The Hague, Netherlands; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-544) and HR Biopetroleum (Honolulu, Hawaii; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7368-545) have begun construction of a pilot facility to grow marine algae, which will be harvested for producing vegetable oil that will be converted into biofuel. The…
Letters
Opinion on ChE Graduate Shortages Your editorial (Calling all chemical engineers, Sept., p. 5) on the subject of the lack of entrants to chemical engineering studies and careers invited readers to reply. I think that this problem will not go…
Bookshelf
Introduction to Process Engineering & Design. By S. B. Thakore and B. I. Bhatt. Tata McGraw Hill, B-4, Sector 63, Distt. Gautam Budh Nagar, Noida, UP-201301. Web: tatamcgrawhill.com. 2007. 768 pages, Rs 500. Reviewed by Michael E. Ryan, Department of…