Commentary
Honoring personal achievement: 2014 Award for Personal Achievement in Chemical Engineering
Do you know someone whom you would describe as having a distinguished career in chemical engineering? Perhaps it is someone you have admired, or who has inspired you. If you would like to bring recognition to that person, consider nominating…
Capital cost calculations, Postscripts, corrections
Capital cost calculations I recently read the article “Capital Costs Quickly Calculated” [ Chem. Eng., pp.46–52, April 2009] and find it extremely informative and useful. I have reservations about the example given about the cost comparison of two spherical storage…
A repeat near miss
It is with extreme reticence that I author this page, even though I received permission several months ago to do so. FRI had a near miss in 2010, which was identical to a near miss that occurred in 2007. In…
A booming interest in separation technologies
Distillation and absorption are back. The AIChE Spring Meeting (San Antonio, April 28–May 2) proved it and the fall meeting to be held in November will muffle any doubting Thomases. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, I spent appreciable…
Keeping the water flowing
Currently, there are around 13,000 desalination plants in operation or under construction in 150 countries, according to the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE; Rugby, U.K.; www.icheme.org). A number of these plants are in, or are planned for, locations that might…
The science of droplets
Many chemical engineers study or employ distillation trays, gas-liquid separators and spray nozzles. Most of those engineers have studied or employed force balances around liquid droplets suspended in upward-flowing vapor streams. Considering a droplet of size “ d, ” for…
The greening of China
The AchemAsia exhibition and conferences (www.achemasia.de) are a pretty good guide to trends in the chemical process industries (CPI) in China. Held every three years, you can measure changes simply by studying what is on show, and what delegates have…
‘Evil’ chemicals
I was at the local Panera Bread. I almost screamed. I would have, except there was a sign on the front door that said “Positively No Screaming.” I was sitting within earshot of a junior-high-school science teacher whom I did…
Selling new technologies
During my youth, as a mass- and heat-transfer R&D manager, there were 12 occasions when new technologies were sold for the very first time. One or two of those technologies might have been considered “breakthroughs.” The others were very significant…
The pending water shortage
There is an emerging crisis brewing for the chemical processing industries (CPI) in many regions of the world. Those regions include China, the world’s manufacturing powerhouse; swaths of the U.S., including large parts of its South; and chunks of Europe.…