In The News
The commercial debut for a gas-to-gasoline process
Last month in Ovadan-Depe, Turkmenistan, construction began on a plant that will produce gasoline from natural gas. When the plant starts up approximately four years from now, it will produce 15,500 barrels per day (bbl/d) of synthetic gasoline using the…
A direct route to organosilicon compounds
Researchers from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; Tsukuba City, Japan; www.aist.go.jp), with support from New Energy and Industry Technology Development Org. (NEDO; Kawasaki City; Japan; www.nedo.go.jp) have developed a technology to efficiently synthesize tetra-alkoxy-silane —…
Combine wastewater treatment with biofuel production
Algae Systems LLC (Daphne, Ala.; www.algaesystems.com) has inaugurated a demonstration plant that integrates municipal wastewater treatment with the cultivation of biofuel-producing algae. Pretreated and disinfected municipal wastewater is passed to Algae Systems offshore floating-bag photobioreactors (PBRs), which are located in…
October Chementator Briefs
A step closer to bio-based acrylic acid Last month, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com), Cargill (Minneapolis, Minn.; www.cargill.com) and Novozymes (Copenhagen, Denmark; www.novozymes.com) achieved another milestone in the joint development of technologies to produce acrylic acid from renewable resources.…
Eastman to acquire specialty chemicals company Taminco for $2.8 billion; and more business news
Plant Watch Lanxess expands new plant for inorganic pigments in Ningbo September 11, 2014 — Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) is adding a mixing and milling plant to the pigment plant already under construction in Ningbo, China. The new pigment…
An energy-saving bioreactor for wastewater treatment
A bioreactor technology for removing organic and inorganic contaminants from industrial wastewater has been commercially launched by developer Honeywell and its subsidiary UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com). The launch is part of a wider initiative by UOP to respond…
Rethinking Intellectual Property Policies
A philosophical shift in the way universities treat intellectual property (IP) resulting from industry-sponsored research could mean substantial benefits to companies in the chemical process industries (CPI). Specifically, large research universities in the U.S. are adopting, developing or considering policies…
This solar cell promises to be less expensive
A commercial prototype perovskite solar cell that is less expensive than current thin-film solar cells is under development by a team from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore; www.ntu.edu.sg), in collaboration with Dyesol Ltd. (Queanbeyan, NSW, Australia; www.dyesol.com) and professor Michael Grätzel…
Jacobs JV selected for Sellafield Framework
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (Pasadena, Calif.; www.jacobs.com) says that its joint venture (JV) with AMEC and Balfour Beatty has been selected by Sellafield Ltd. to deliver its Box Encapsulation Plant (BEP) project in West Cumbria, U.K. Sellafield officials noted that…
GEA acquires Scan-Vibro
After having worked together for years across the globe, GEA Process Engineering (Søborg, Denmark; www.gep.com) announces the acquisition of Scan-Vibro A/S from Svendborg in Denmark. The acquisition is a perfect match and the plan is to further grow and develop…