New distillation columns are getting much larger. The history of column sizes, and design and construction issues associated with large columns were recently addressed at the AIChE Spring Meeting (New Orleans, La.; March 30 to April 3) by Dan Summers…
In May, this company officially launched its Bio-Cel XL submerged module for membrane bioreactors (MBRs) at IFAT 2014 in Munich, and already received its first order during the show. This new XL-version of the Bio-Cel has a total membrane area…
The further developed CF Series candle filters are particularly suitable for purifying industrial wastewater with low solids content. They have been specially developed for the filtration of liquids with solid concentration of less than 1% — an area of limited…
Purair SKY ceiling-mounted filtration units (photo) provide personnel protection in areas where hazardous substances are handled. Outfitted with a dynamic filtration chamber and a sliding filter clamp that allows for quick filter changes, these units are designed for a wide…
Sour-water strippers (SWSs) are common in petroleum refineries, as well as gas-processing and gasification plants, and are used to remove ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide from contaminated process waters. The design of these units is typically done using the…
At the 2011 Spring AIChE meeting (Chicago, Ill.), Sean Hennigan of BP gave a presentation regarding a column troubleshoot that yielded a counterintuitive result. A column bottleneck was ultimately traced to the presence of a vacuum cleaner in a tray…
In my October 2011 column (A window into kettle reboiler secrets, Chem. Eng. p. 28) I briefly described FRI’s early work using two windows on its industrial-size kettle reboiler. Subsequent to that, FRI had performed appreciable heat-transfer work. All of…
JM Science An oil evaporator for difficult sample matrices The AquaCounter EV-2000L oil evaporator (photo) utilizes azeotropic distillation and completely separates water from sample matrices, thus eliminating any side reactions with interfering substances. The oil evaporator is especially useful…
I felt somewhat insulted when he said, “At universities, we do the difficult work and we leave the easy work for industry.” I had asked a question of a speaker at the November 2013 AIChE meeting. The speaker answered the…
FRI’s membership has been growing steadily since 2006. As a result, I have more bosses every year; at present, 78. I receive input from them in several ways. They attend quarterly meetings. They respond to surveys and votes. They send…