Environment, Health, Safety & Security
Chementator: Plant security
BroadWare Technologies, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5829-548) and Intergraph Corp. (Huntsville, Ala.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5829-549) have created an integrated solution that feeds high-quality video from remote locations to a central command center to speed decisionmaking and response time when a security event…
Technology Showcase: Trends in Fluid Catalytic Cracking
Advances in catalytic cracking technologies are improving efficiency, product selectivity and environmental emissions. Optimum performance, reliability and flexibility of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) units is essential for the continued competitiveness of refineries and their ability to meet market…
Understanding Atmospheric Storage Tanks
Liquids are accumulated and stored in tanks of various shapes and sizes throughout the chemical process industries (CPI). A small number of companies have made the design, fabrication and erection of these vessels their specialty. Initially, however, it…
Combustion guidelines
Last month, the Commission on Air Pollution Prevention of the VDI and DIN Standards Committee (Düsseldorf, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5828-544) published a new guideline (VDI 2442), which provides specific information on the design, construction and operation of waste-gas cleaning plants using thermal…
How to Handle Hydrogen In Process Plants
Hydrogen is widely employed for hydrogenation and other purposes in chemicals manufacture, petroleum refining and other chemical process industries (Hydrogen: The Real Action Is Today, CE, February, pp. 28ff), and it holds promise as a fuel. However, this…
A Modern Approach to Solvent Selection
Solvents have been used for centuries and in all type of industries for the processing, manufacturing and formulation of goods. In the chemical process industries (CPI), solvents are used in various process-operation steps such as separation (of gas,…
Green chemistry — there’s a lot still left to do
Last August, the comments on this page saluted recent achievements of BASF Corp., Merck, Archer Daniels Midland and other winners of the U.S.’s 2005 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Program, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (Green-chemistry feats bring in the…
Chementator: A ‘litmus’ test for heavy metals
Toshishige M. Suzuki and his colleagues at the Tohoku Center of National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST; Sendai, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-538) has developed a new analytical test strip that can quickly detect parts-per-billion (ppb) concentrations of heavy metal…
Consider Alternate Fuels To Cut Costs
Fuel costs rose sharply in 2005 because of hurricane damage to U.S. interests in the Gulf of Mexico, and international developments in the oil supply market. Competing fuels — coal and natural gas — rose in price in…
Chementator: Selective flotation
The presence of arsenic minerals, such as enargite and tennantite, in some copper-bearing ore bodies, can be a problem for those wishing to recover the copper. When delivering copper concentrates to smelters in Australia, for example, miners are subjected to…