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| The winner of the 39th Kirpatrick Award is Axens Group Technologies. Pictured here at the award ceremony are (left to right) Charles Cameron, Director, Business Development (Axens); Manual Herrera, Principal Process Engineer (Axens); Rebekkah Marshall, Editor-in-Chief (CE); Nella Veldran, Publisher (CE); James MacArthur, Vice President, Engineering (Axens); J.L. Ross, Technology Manager (Axens) |
At Monday evening’s gala dinner at the Rainbow Room, Chemical Engineering (CE) had the pleasure of honoring this year’s finalists and the winner of the 2007 Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award, a biennial prize that the magazine has bestowed continuously since the early 1930s. This year’s event recognized the most noteworthy chemical engineering technology commercialized anywhere in the world during 2005 or 2006 and was sponsored in part by Emerson Process Management (St. Louis, Mo.).
CE Editor-in-Chief Rebekkah Marshall presented the 39th edition of the Kirkpatrick Award to Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France) for its Esterfip-H process for making biodiesel. Honor Awards were also presented to: Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.) for its IntegRex technology used for making PET resin; Oxford Catalyst Ltd. (U.K.) for a process to make steam chemically; and APSI (Elmhurst, Ill.) for its mechanical vapor recompression technology.
Meanwhile, the event paid tribute to CE’s late Editor-in-Chief Nicholas P. Chopey, a longtime champion of the Kirkpatrick Awards, and announced that CE will match up to $10,000 in donations for a scholarship that will be founded in his name.
The winner
Axens’ Esterfip-H process uses a heterogeneous catalyst — a solid-phase spinel oxide — to transesterify triglyceride oils with methanol into fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). This eliminates several neutralization and washing steps (and the associated waste streams) needed for conventional processes using homogeneous catalysts, such as sodium hydroxide or sodium methylate. In addition, the glycerin byproduct from Esterfip-H has a purity of better than 98%, compared to about 80% from homogeneous-catalyzed routes.
In the continuous Esterfip-H process, the transesterification reaction is performed at a higher temperature than that of the homogeneous-catalysis route, with an excess of methanol. This excess is removed by vaporization and recycled to the process. The chemical conversion is reached with two successive fixed-bed reactor stages, with glycerin separated to shift the equilibrium. Esters and glycerol are then separated in a settler, and the biodiesel subsequently purified to remove traces of glycerin. The purity of the methyl esters exceeds 99%, with yields close to 100%, says Axens.
The Esterfip-H process made its commercial debut in 2006 with the startup of Diester Industrie’s (Paris) 160,000-m.t./yr plant at Sete, France. Since then, several other units have been licensed, including the first U.S.-based plant, which is scheduled to startup this year.
Honor awards Oxford Catalysts Ltd., for a chemical method for steam production: Oxford Catalysts Ltd. has developed a chemical method for producing steam — at temperatures from 100 to 800°C — directly and instantaneously from a liquid fuel. This technology does not require an external heat source, boiler or mains power supply, making it suitable for applications where steam generation by traditional methods was previously considered impractical. Superheated steam is generated instantaneously when required; therefore no energy is lost in keeping the steam hot when it is not being used. In the process, a solution of methanol and hydrogen peroxide is passed over a proprietary, precious-metal catalyst. The highly exothermic reaction spontaneously generates water and carbon dioxide at high temperatures. Temperatures in the catalyst bed can reach as high as 1,000°C, and exit temperatures can reach as high as 800°C. By restricting the exit flow through a valve or orifice, the pressure of the steam can be increased.
In July 2006, a prototype development program was agreed under contract with Proventec Plc., a provider of specialist steam-cleaning technologies. Both companies believe the technology can be applied in the fast-growing markets for industrial steam cleaning, including food processing, packaging plants and hospitals. Other applications, besides cleaning, include decontamination and electricity production.
APSI, for enabling economical evaporation via mechanical vapor recompression: Up to now, the adoption of mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) evaporators has been impeded due to the high capital costs and low reliability of available compressors, claims Bruce Bishkin, president of APSI. With its R-Vap technology, APSI has enabled a common liquid-ring compressor/vacuum pump (LRC) to power MVR, thus improving the economics and reliability considerably, he says.
The R-Vap can be used for concentrating sugars, glycols, brines and other aqueous streams, with productivities as high as 7 gal/kWh. A patent related to R-Vap was issued in 2005 and the company is now building units for corn syrup haulers, juice concentrators, spent-tool coolant disposers, mining operations and metal finishers. Capacities range from 5 to 45 gal/min distillation rates.
Eastman Chemical Co., for a quicker route to PET: In 2006, Eastman Chemical Co. started up a 350,000-m.t./yr PET plant at its Columbia, S.C. site, marking the first commercial application of its IntegRex Technology. Protected by more than 150 U.S. patents, the IntegRex process eliminates the solid-stating phase from resin manufacturing. The process is said to reduce the overall environmental footprint of the PET plant and subsequent energy usage, while offering customers a “better engineered” product, called ParaStar Next Generation PET.
ParaStar is a drop-in replacement for standard PET on bottle manufacturing equipment. The resins are 100% recyclable, and acetaldehyde levels are lowered by more than 25%, says Eastman. We salute these champions of chemical process innovation.