Chemical Engineering
Chevron Lummus providing process technology for lubricants plant in Brazil
Chevron Lummus Global LLC (CLG) announced a recent contract award from Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) for a new 12,580 barrel/day (bbl/d) hydroisodewaxing (HIDW) unit at the GasLub Hub, a lubricant plant in Itaboraí, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. Chevron Lummus…
Venator completes sale of Iron Oxide business
Venator Materials PLC (Wynyard, U.K.) announced that it has completed the sale of its Iron Oxide business to Cathay Industries. The enterprise value of the transaction was $140 million and Venator expects to receive cash proceeds of approximately $130 million…
Focus on Thermal Mass Flow Measurement
Focus on Thermal Mass Flow Measurement Questions and answers provided by Fluid Components International Create your own user feedback survey
A customized catalyst for solid-state reactions
Chemists at Hokkaido University (Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan; www.global.hokudai.ac.jp) and the Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery have developed what is said to be the first high-performance catalyst specifically designed and optimized for solid-state, mechanochemical synthesis. The new approach was…
What Manufacturing Sites Can Learn from Municipalities About Water Loss
Accurate water-monitoring technologies support short- and long-term sustainability goals in both municipalities and the industrial sector In recent years, São Paulo, Cape Town and other major world cities have come dangerously close to running out of water, and the criticality…
Decarbonizing cement production using solar-thermal energy
Last month, the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) awarded $3.2 million in funding for the Solar MEAD project, which aims to decarbonize cement production. This joint project is headed by Cemex, S.A.B. de C.V. (Cemex; Monterrey, Mexico;…
Chementator Briefs
P-XYLENE FROM CO2 Last month, a Japanese consortium announced the successful production and purification of p-xylene produced from CO2 at pilot scale. The University of Toyama (www.u-toyama.ac.jp), Chiyoda Corp. (www.chiyodacorp.com) and HighChem Co., Ltd. (www.highchem.co.jp) have been collaborating on producing…
A new milestone for durable fuel-cell membranes
For the first time, a hydrocarbon-based membrane has passed the performance and durability testing standards set by the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) for heavy-duty fuel-cell applications. Typically, membranes in fuel cells are made of perfluorinated materials…
Converting waste polyolefins to isoalkanes
Chemical recycling of waste polyolefins is difficult to achieve economically partly because of the stability of carbon-carbon bonds in the plastics. In a new approach, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL; Richland, Wash.; www.pnnl.gov) and the Technical University of…
Electrolysis of seawater — without pre-treatment
Current electrolyzers for producing hydrogen use purified water as feedstock, but in the future, this could exacerbate freshwater shortages in some areas. Seawater is highly abundant, but the ions it contains undergo electrode side reactions, and cause corrosion in proton-exchange…