The ultimate objective of storing liquid, fluid and gaseous products, which may be corrosive, flammable or unstable, is to store material in an environmentally safe and economically viable manner. Storage tanks in the chemical process industries (CPI) can be most…
Corrosion is estimated to account for a significant portion — 8–10% — of total annual-plant-capital expenditures for the chemical process industries. To avoid it, engineers can consider corrosion-resistant plastics for process piping and storage vessels. Thermoplastics are generally resistant to…
There are many considerations when choosing piping materials for an industrial system. Historically, when options were more limited, the decision-making process was relatively straightforward. It was a matter of choosing what grade of metal to install. Today, there is a…
New radial diaphragm valves improve 'cleanability' A single-body valve design with boreline seal that minimizes entrapment areas is responsible for the ease of cleaning. The DR Series of valves (photo) is designed for sterile flow streams in media preparation, fermentation,…
Multiple CSTRs (continuous stirred-tank reactors) are advantageous in situations where the reaction is slow; two immiscible liquids are present and require higher agitation rates; or viscous liquids are present that require high agitation rates. Unlike in plugflow reactors, agitation is…
Efforts toward large-scale production of lithium-ion (Li-ion)-based car batteries got a big boost in early August, when the Obama Administration announced $2.4 billion in U.S. government investment aimed, in part, at dramatically ramping up the supply chain for advanced batteries…
The Instrument Society of America (ISA) 2009 exhibitor show Expo 2009 will be held October 6–8 at the Reliant Center in Houston. Over 300 exhibitors are expected to display automation-and-control technology products and services. The show is organized into six…
The lifetime of steel bearings can be extended by up to eight times by a new synthetic diamond lubricant, according to its developer, NanoLube, Inc. (Lombard, Ill.; www.diamondlube.com). The lubricant consists of 0.1–4-nm diamond spheres that are dispersed in a…
A single-step method to convert cellulosic biomass into aromatic compounds offers a simpler and more environmentally friendly route to the petrochemical feedstocks benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX), according to a Massachusetts bioenergy startup company seeking to scale up the technique.…
Pilot-scale production of biobased succinic acid from dextrose has been demonstrated by Myriant Technologies (Quincy, Mass., www.myriant.com). The firm expects commercial production by mid-2010. The succinic-acid process follows Myriant’s successful commercialization with partner Purac (Blair, Neb.; www.purac.com) of a biobased…