The Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Co. (Takreer, United Arab Emirates; www.takreer.com) has awarded the Shaw Group Inc. (Baton Rouge, La.; www.shawgrp.com) a process license technology package that will include four Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) technologies along with the world’s largest…
Petrom S.A. of Romania has commissioned Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany; www.uhde.biz) to build a gasoline desulphurization plant at its refinery located in Brazi, some 50km north of Bucharest. This clean-fuels plant is scheduled to come on-stream in early 2009 with…
The Dow Performance Fluids, a business of Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7374-546) has introduced a new high-temperature cleaning solvent for cleaning polymer-process reactor vessels, pipelines, heat exchangers, pumps and other equipment impaired by polymer residue. Dow HT-Solve 515 —…
Last month, a Dutch consortium composed of Akzo Nobel (Amsterdam, Netherlands; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7473-549), energy firm Essent, algae producers Ingrepo and Wageningen University, received a 1-million grant to investigate the potential of converting algae into feedstock for the CPI. The four-year study…
Much as the chemical process industries (CPI) themselves are always evolving, so too are the engineering materials that play a role behind the scenes. While they may not always make headlines as groundbreaking scientific technologies tend to do, new…
Plant Watch Evonik to close its orthoesters plant in Niederkassel... June 11, 2008 — Evonik Industries AG will be shutting down its production plant for orthoesters in Niederkassel (Germany) in the 3rd Q of this year. It has been forced…
Single crystals of high-purity, anatase titanium dioxide with a high percentage of reactive (001) facets are said to have promising applications in solar cells, photonic and optoelectronic devices, sensors and photocatalysis. However, it is the (101) crystal facets of anatase…
Alkylglyceryl ethers (AGEs) are biodegradable nonionic surfactants with excellent foaming and moisturizing properties. Up to now, AGEs have been made in batch reactors whereby the corresponding alkyl glycidyl ether (GE) is hydrolyzed in a solvent (alcohol or ethyleneglycol monoalkyl ether)…
Current silks tend to lose performance in water and yellow in sunlight. Few of the silk-producing species of insect or spider are amenable to domestication, their silks are difficult to produce using biotechnology, and it is difficult to spin those…
Titanium, the ninth most abundant metal in the world, has some desirable properties — the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal and high-temperature and corrosion resistance. However, its high production cost has so far restricted its use mainly to aerospace…