GE Plastics (Pittsfield, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-543) has launched Extem thermoplastic polyimide (TPI) resins, a new family of amorphous polymers. The new resin is said to overcome the drawbacks of semicrystalline materials, imidized thermosets and competitive amorphous thermoplastics. Among Extem resin’s properties…
Samson AG (Frankfurt, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-545) has started to implement the Vigilant Integration Partners (VIP) initiative, having entered a formal cooperation agreement with Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-546). The VIP initiative is an open and non-exclusive mutual technology cooperation program to…
Last month, UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6519-544) established a new business unit — Renewable Energy and Chemicals — dedicated to introducing new technology for processing renewable energy sources in existing or new petroleum refineries around the world. The new…
Last month, Thai Oleochemicals Company Ltd. (TOL; Bangkok, Thailand) and Thai Fatty Alcohols Company Ltd. signed a contract with Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-531) for the construction of an integrated plant for making 200,000 m.t./yr of methyl ester, 100,000 m.t./yr…
Last month, China’s third largest oil company, CNOOC, and Choren Industries GmbH (Freiberg, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-548) launched a new joint venture — Choren-CNOOC Beijing Gasification Engineering Technology Co. Ltd. (edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-549) — to market technologies for gasifying solid feedstock, such as coal…
This month, JFE Steel Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-532) started up a new production plant that produces 100 m.t./yr of solar-grade (SOG) silicon (Si) from crude Si metal. The company also started to design a 500-1,000-m.t./yr plant for making SOG Si,…
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arlington, Va.) has awarded $5.7 million to a two-company consortium to develop an inexpensive and energy-efficient process for making titanium metal powder. Such powders can be used to make strong, lightweight objects, such…
On September 5, Linde AG (Wiesbaden, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-547) and the BOC Group plc. (Windlesham, U.K.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-548) merged to become one of the leading industrial gases and engineering companies. The new company is called The Linde Group (Munich, Germany), but the…
Last month, BOC Edwards (Wilmington, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-549) completed installations of its new ERIX wastewaster treatment system at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, of the University of Albany's Albany NanoTech complex (N.Y.). The installation is a development step towards…
Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW; Karlsruhe) and Siemens Power Generation (Erlangen, both Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-550) are joining forces to build a fuel-cell hybrid power plant with 70% efficiency (fuel to electricity) and a megawatt-scale power output. The 70% efficiency of this hybrid…