The world’s first pilot plant for manufacturing bio-based furan dicarboxylic methyl ester (FDME) began operating last month in Decatur, Ill. A collaboration between DuPont Industrial Biosciences (Wilmington, Del.; www.biosciences.dupont.com) and Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM; Chicago, Ill.; www.adm.com), the 60-ton/yr…
Digitalization, sustainability, security and safety are at the forefront of innovations in the logistics and supply-chain sectors Ensuring that chemical products reach the correct location at the correct time requires intricate networks of complex logistics and scheduling tasks where several…
The ability to achieve an optimal steam balance can help to improve the overall thermal cycle efficiency of any steam-production system In any chemical process plant that produces steam, carrying out a steam balance is the most efficient way to…
Petroleum refiners looking to upgrade low-octane naphtha have an additional option using a process that increases the higher-octane iso-paraffins and aromatic compounds at lower costs than currently available alternatives. Most refiners currently upgrade naphtha by hydrotreating followed by isomerization and…
A new fermentation-based technology aims to create leather materials from yeast rather than animal skin. Developed by Modern Meadow (Nutley, N.J.; www.modernmeadow.com), the process feeds sugar feedstock to yeast cells that have been engineered to create collagen. Some additional enzymes…
Hydrotreating is an important petroleum refining process in which sulfur and other contaminants are removed in the manufacture of transportation fuels. At the recent annual meeting of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com)…
Hydrogen sulfide occurs naturally in petroleum reservoirs, but must be removed from crude oil prior to transportation from drilling sites to storage tanks at petroleum refineries. H2S is corrosive to storage tanks, pipelines and railcars, and without proper treatment, can…
Responsiveness and adaptability — in the face of shifting market forces, new regulatory policy and natural disasters, among others — framed the discussions of U.S. petroleum refiners at the AFPM annual meeting Responsiveness and adaptability for U.S. petroleum refiners emerged…
Fundamental research, using a huge arsenal of analytical and material-characterization tools, is yielding new and improved catalyst supports Readers of this magazine certainly understand the importance of catalysts in the chemical process industries (CPI), where they are used for speeding…
This column is based on “Propylene Oxide from Propylene and Chlorine – Cost Analysis,” a report published by Intratec. It can be found at: www.intratec.us/analysis/propylene-oxide-e11a. Propylene oxide (PO) is a highly reactive commodity compound that serves as a starting material…