In January, specialty materials maker Celanese Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.celanese.com) beta-launched a remote-operations control room (ROCR) that allows hands-free queries of plant data for faster data gathering and decision-making. The ROCR leverages recent advances in generative-artificial intelligence (gen-AI)-powered natural language…
Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden; www.kth.se) have developed a way to decouple the production of hydrogen and oxygen in water electrolysis, thereby reducing the explosion potential of mixing the two gases. The method, described in a…
Plant Watch EuroChem launches phosphate-fertilizer manufacturing complex in Brazil March 14, 2024 — EuroChem Group (Zug, Switzerland; www.eurochemgroup.com) opened a new fertilizer-production facility in Serra do Salitre, Brazil. With a total project investment of nearly $1 billion, the new phosphate…
New designs and materials overcome high temperatures, pressures and aggressive media In the chemical process industries (CPI), standard equipment is often capable of working universally across many applications. However, this same notion does not apply to the sealing elements used…
Batch manufacturing methods are common throughout the chemical process industries (CPI) for specialized compounds and reactions. However, typical batch-wise manufacturing processes are often time-consuming due to large volumes and long loading and unloading times added to the batch processing time,…
Nalco Water, the Ecolab, Inc. (St. Paul, Minn.) water-management brand, announced the opening of a wastewater treatment plant in Shell Jurong Island, Singapore. Commencing operations earlier this year, this facility is designed to handle variable bio-treater wastewater. The plant utilizes…
Repsol S.A. (Madrid, Spain) and Bunge (St. Louis, Mo.) have agreed to partner in the development of new opportunities to help meet the growing demand for lower carbon intensity feedstocks for the production of renewable fuels. This alliance, the first…
Henkel AG (Düsseldorf, Germany) and Kraton Corp. (Houston) announced a multi-year supply partnership. In this agreement, Kraton will supply Henkel Adhesive Technologies with high-performance, biobased tackifiers and its patented REvolution rosin ester technology to enable carbon emission reductions in a…
KBR, Inc. (Houston) announced that it has secured a five-year asset condition monitoring program contract from Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Company (Petro Rabigh) to deploy predictive maintenance services at its plant in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia. The program will optimize asset…
SSumitomo Chemical Co. (Tokyo, Japan) and its subsidiary Valent BioSciences LLC (Libertyville, Ill.) announced that Pace International LLC (Pace) and its operations overseas will become part of AgroFresh Solutions, Inc., a well-established leader in the postharvest solutions space. The decision…