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Processing & Handling

Air separation: Mature processes, modern improvements

      The fortunes of many an industrial sector have risen and fallen in the face of fluctuating oil and gas prices. Today, the industrial gas industry’s fortunes are being buoyed — in a roundabout way — by the…

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Making Emulsions

        When Estee Lauder begin stirring up recipes for facial creams recipes in her kitchen some 70 years ago — the start of a $6.5-billion cosmetics empire that still bears her name — making high-purity emulsions was…

This efficient micromixer is less prone to fouling

By repetitive dividing and merging of laminar flows within complex patterns of narrow (25–40 µm) channels, static micromixers are very efficient at making homogeneous mixtures. However, the narrow channels are susceptible to clogging, and the cost to precisely manufacture the…

This catalyst converts cellulose into sugar alcohols

Cellulose accounts for about 40% of the planet’s total photosynthesis yield (about 1.8 trillion m.t./yr), but the material has not been fully utilized as a chemical resource so far. That’s because the methods currently available for converting cellulose into useful…

A cleaner way to remove olefins from aromatics

ExxonMobil Chemical Technology Licensing LLC (Houston, Tex.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-541) has commercialized its new Olgone technology, a catalyst-based process for removing olefins from aromatic streams. If not removed, such olefinic materials interfere with downstream equipment, adsorbents, sieves and catalysts, says the company.…

Progress on H2O2-based process to make PO

Last September, construction commenced on the world's first commercial-scale hydrogen peroxide, propylene oxide (HPPO) plant at the Antwerp, Belgium, site of BASF AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-542). The 300,000 m.t./yr facility is a joint venture of BASF and Dow Chemical Co.…

New electrolysis technology scaled up for Shanghai’s integrated-petrochemical complex

Construction is underway on what is said to be the world's largest hydrogen chloride recycling plant, for Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS; Leverkusen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-536). When the unit starts up in 2008 at the Shanghai, China site, it will produce 215,000…

A new catalyst proves itself in first commercial application

Since February, Lonza Singapore Pte. Ltd. has been using a new I-400 catalyst in a Isomar unit at its Singapore plant, which produces pure isophthalic acid (an intermediate for making resins). The I-400 catalyst was developed by UOP LLC (Des…

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Ti powder

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arlington, Va.) has awarded $5.7 million to a two-company consortium to develop an inexpensive and energy-efficient process for making titanium metal powder. Such powders can be used to make strong, lightweight objects, such…

Chiral catalyst

Chemists at Boston College (Chestnut Hill, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-546) have discovered a silylation catalyst that attaches a silicon atom to an alcohol group not only with high selectivity, but also in such a way that only one enantiomer is formed. Silyation…