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Chemical Engineering

Enhancing Characterization of Thermal Barrier Coatings

Combining microscopy and machine-learning techniques leads to faster, more precise analyses of critical coating materials When the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft was designed to soar at three times the speed of sound, engineers faced an extreme challenge: managing the heat generated…

New evaporative crystallizer design accelerates direct-air carbon capture

A novel crystallizer has shown promise in lowering costs for direct-air capture (DAC) of CO2 emissions. In recent work published in Nature Chemical Engineering, a research team from the University of Toronto; www.utoronto.ca), led by mechanical and industrial engineering professor…

Electrochemical route to extracting lithium ions from ‘black mass’ could lead to more efficient battery recycling

Black mass is the powdered material resulting from shredding end-of-life lithium-ion vehicle batteries. For effective recycling, lithium must be efficiently separated from this material, but conventional methods, such as smelting at high temperatures or dissolving in strong acids, require large…

Project reveals insights about catalysts for microwave-assisted methane dehydroaromatization

Several situations, including when takeaway capacity is limited at remote oil-well sites, result in methane flaring. To avoid wasting that resource, several strategies have been explored to convert methane onsite into commercially useful liquid chemicals. One of the approaches is…

Mosaic to sell its potash assets in Carlsbad, New Mexico

The Mosaic Co. (Tampa, Fla.) announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell Mosaic Potash Carlsbad, Inc., including the operations, assets and liabilities of the Mosaic mine in Carlsbad, New Mexico to International Minerals Carlsbad, LLC for $30…

NEXTCHEM acquires process engineering firm Ballestra Group

MAIRE S.p.A. (Milan) announced that NEXTCHEM has signed a binding agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Ballestra Group, a global leader in the licensing, design and engineering of processing plants, as well as the supply of proprietary technologies…

Bp sells its majority stake in Castrol lubricants business

Bp plc (London) has reached an agreement to sell a 65% shareholding in lubricants business Castrol to Stonepeak, at an enterprise value of $10.1 billion. This represents an implied EV / LTM EBITDA of around 8.6x reflecting the strength of…

Outlook for the Chemical Process Industries (CPI) 2026: Putting the Pieces Together

Several 2025 year-end reports and data releases paint a nuanced picture of the global chemical process industries (CPI) as we head into 2026. The complex picture reflects the diversity of industry sectors comprising the CPI, and the wide range of…

Protecting Process-Plant Operations from the Impacts of Lightning

Editor’s note: The following is a question-and-answer conversation between Chemical Engineering magazine senior editor Scott Jenkins and Sean Carpenter, solutions analyst at Lightning Eliminators & Consultants, Inc. (LEC), a leading provider of lightning protection solutions. Chemical Engineering’s questions appear below…

Tata Chemicals acquires sodium bicarbonate manufacturer Novabay

Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL; Mumbai, India) announced that Tata Chemicals International Pte. Limited (TCIPL) a 100% subsidiary of TCL, has signed a Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) to acquire 100% equity shares of Novabay Pte. Limited (Novabay) manufacturer of premium grade…