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Chemical Engineering

PPG, UDC to expand OLED materials production with new plant in Ireland

Universal Display Corporation (UDC) and PPG (Pittsburgh, Pa.) announced that UDC Ireland Limited and PPG will jointly establish a new manufacturing site in Shannon, Ireland, for the production of UDC’s highly efficient, high-performing UniversalPHOLED materials. The new facility will be…

Milliken acquires German masterbatches manufacturer Zebra-chem

Milliken & Co. (Spartanburg, S.C.) has formally acquired Zebra-chem GmbH, a global chemicals company known for its peroxide and blowing agent masterbatches. With more brands and governments globally setting goals to increase their use of recycled materials, plastics manufacturers are…

Lummus starts up CDAlky unit at Valero’s St. Charles refinery

Lummus Technology (Houston) announced the start-up of its CDAlky C5 alkylation unit at Valero's St. Charles Refinery in Norco, Louisiana. The capacity of the alkylation complex is 17,000 bbl/d of Alkylate product. "The safe and successful start-up demonstrates how Lummus provides…

Separate xylene isomers with less energy

Xylene isomers are usually derived from the catalytic reforming of crude oil, and require costly methods to separate them from each other, including distillation, fractional crystallization and adsorption in high-temperature and high-pressure environments. “The separation of xylene’s isomers requires much…

Chementator Briefs

Self-healing adhesives Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) developed a series of autonomous self-healable and highly adhesive elastomers that are fabricated via a simple, efficient and scalable process. The self-healing elastomers demonstrated unprecedented adhesion strength and…

Direct degradation of microplastics in wastewater

Microplastic pollutants in wastewater are notoriously difficult to treat, and can stem from many common sources, ranging from personal-care products to textiles. A new treatment technology developed by a team of researchers from Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS;…

A two-step process reduces nitrous oxide emissions

Last month, Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) inaugurated a new plant in Lillo/Antwerp, Belgium to reduce the nitrous oxide emissions that are generated during the production of caprolactam. The €10-million investment breaks down approximately 500 metric tons (m.t.) of N2O…

Sustainable enzyme-based production of macrocyclic lactones for fragrances

Planned commercial-scale production of macrocyclic gamma-lactone molecules using an enzymatic process will supply the flavors and fragrances market with sustainable alternatives to existing processes based on synthesizing petroleum-derived molecules or isolating molecules from natural sources. The synthetic biology company Conagen…

Anaerobic fermentation process using human gut microfauna

Industrial-scale production of protein-rich food additives based on anaerobic fermentation is slated to begin later this year at a former bioethanol site in Minnesota. The facility will use a fermentation process developed by White Dog Labs (WDL; Newark, Del.; www.whitedoglabs.com)…

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Facts at your Fingertips: Thermal Oxidizer Selection

Thermal oxidizers are pollution-control units designed to prevent process-generated volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from entering the environment. Different technologies offer tradeoffs among initial cost, operating expense, complexity, emissions, fuel efficiency and destruction efficiency. This one-page reference provides information on selecting…