AMT International Inc. (Plano, Texas; www.amtintl.com) and LG Chem, Ltd. (Seoul, Korea; www.lgchem.com) have successfully converted an existing sulfolane liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) unit at LG Chem’s Yeosu plant using a new extractive-distillation (ED) process for aromatics recovery. This technology was…
Cement manufacturing is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions due to two factors: carbon dioxide is released when calcium carbonate calcines to lime (CaO) in the cement manufacturing process; and cement kilns are operated at temperatures of 1,500°C, which…
The selective, one-step biocatalytic hydroxylation of benzene to phenol — at ambient pressure and temperature — has been demonstrated by professors Yoshihito Watanabe and Osamu Shoji at Nagoya University (Nagoya, Japan; bioinorg.chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp). The achievement was made using a wild-type of…
Solar steam The Middle East’s first solar enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) project was recently commissioned by Petroleum Development Oman (PDO; Muscat, Oman; www.pdo.co.om). The project uses Enclosed Trough technology from GlassPoint (Fremont, Calif.; www.glasspoint.com) to produce an average of 50 ton/d of…
Although the inactivation of bacteria by high-power ultrasound has been extensively studied, the relationship between the effectiveness of ultrasound to inactivate bacteria and their physico-chemical properties is not yet well understood, says Muthupandian Ashokkumar, professor at the University of Melbourne…
Launched this month at drinktec (Trade Fair for the Beverage and Liquid Food Industry; September 16–20; Munich, Germany), Eco-IcePush is a new technology for recovering products during equipment purging, and is being offered by GEA Process Engineering A/S (Søborg, Denmark),…
Many investigations are ongoing to achieve ammonia synthesis at energy-saving mild conditions instead of the high temperatures and pressures (500°C, 300 atm) required by the commonly used Haber-Bosch process, which consumes more than 1% of the world’s power production. Now,…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) will supply the latest flash-smelting technology improvements to the upgrade of Rio Tinto's Kennecott Utah copper smelter in the U.S. The contract value is approximately €14 million and will be booked in Outotec's third quarter…
JGC Corp. (Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.co.jp) announced today that, together with Marubeni Corp. and Aljomaih Holding Co., (Aljomaih; Dammam, Saudi Arabia), it has signed a contract to provide electric power and steam to three oil-and-gas complexes owned by the Saudi state-owned…
R.C. Costello & Assoc., Inc. (Redondo Beach, Calif.; www.rccostello.com) and Zeton Inc. (Burlington, Ontario, Canada; www.zeton.com) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide a customized “end-to-end” solution from feasibility studies, process simulation, front-end engineering through detailed design, procurement,…