Chemical Engineering
PPG inaugurates battery application center in China
PPG (Pittsburgh, Pa.) announced that it has inaugurated a battery pack application center (BPAC) in Tianjin, China. The $30-million facility features a full range of capabilities to test the application of PPG coatings technologies, materials and systems for electric vehicle…
Merck enters catalysis collaboration with California research institutions
Merck KGaA (Darmstadt, Germany announced a three-year collaboration with the research group of John Hartwig at University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California. The primary focus of this collaboration between the public research institutes associated with…
Toray announces breakthrough in PPS resin recycling process
Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo) announced that its marketing & sales subsidiary, Toray Resins Europe GmbH (TREU) has established a recycling process for glass-fiber-reinforced polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) resin waste from injection molding processes. TREU created its process by leveraging proprietary compounding…
Maire awarded contract for green-fertilizer project in North America
MAIRE S.p.A. announces that its subsidiary KT-Kinetics Technology (KT), part of the Integrated E&C Solutions (IE&CS) business unit, has been awarded the early engineering works for the realization of a new green fertilizer complex in North America by a group…
Par Pacific completes acquisition of ExxonMobil Billings Refinery
Par Pacific Holdings, Inc. (Houston) announced that it has successfully closed its previously announced acquisition of the Billings refinery and associated marketing and logistics assets from ExxonMobil Corp. (Irving, Tex.) and two of its subsidiaries. The base purchase price of…
Choosing a career path
The past couple of months have been prime time for academic graduations. Graduation ceremonies, aptly named commencements, mark a time when graduates look forward to starting a new phase of their journeys. For some, it means moving on to a…
Pilot trials for a carbon-capture process that combines VPSA and MOFs
This summer, pilot trials will begin at a Buzzi Unicem S.p.A. (Casale Monferrato, Italy; www.buzziunicem.com) cement plant in Monselice, Italy, which will perform field tests of a new carbon-capture process developed by Nuada, the new tradename of MOF Technologies Ltd.…
Ligand-based separation method for rare earth elements
Rare-earth elements (REEs) are difficult to separate because of their similar properties, so conventional methods are often costly and generate significant amounts of waste. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) have developed a new technique…
Business News: June 2023
Plant Watch Trinseo inaugurates new PC dissolution pilot facility in the Netherlands May 15, 2023 — Trinseo LLC (Berwyn, Pa.; www.trinseo.com) inaugurated its polycarbonate (PC) dissolution pilot facility in Terneuzen, the Netherlands. Dissolution recycling is a type of physical recycling…
Lithium Extraction: Prime Time for Brine
Technologies to process lithium-containing brines are in high demand as manufacturers seek to improve recovery volumes and sustainability The two main sources of lithium — one of the most in-demand materials on earth — are mining from ores and extracting…