In The News
Lanxess commissions CO2 concentration unit in South Africa
Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) has commissioned a new CO2 concentration unit at its Newcastle production site in South Africa. Lanxess has invested some €40 million to build the unit, which was completed in just 19 months. The company operates…
Clariant brings new Houdry dehydrogenation catalyst capacity on-stream
Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com) has successfully expanded production capacity for Houdry dehydrogenation catalysts at its Louisville/Kentucky, USA plant. The double-digit million Swiss francs debottlenecking investment will support increasing demand for Houdry catalysts driven mainly by shale gas development. The facility…
Air Products plans liquid N2 facility in Texas
Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) announced plans to build, own and operate a new liquid nitrogen production facility in West Texas to serve the oil and gas industry in the Permian Basin. The new facility, to have an approximate…
Solvay to acquire Chemlogics
As part of its ongoing transformation, Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) has signed an agreement to acquire privately-held Chemlogics (Paso Robles, Calif.) for a total cash consideration of $1.345 billion. Adding the U.S.-based company to Solvay's Novecare business unit will…
Teijin – SK Chemicals JV begins constructing PPS resin plant
Teijin Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; www.teijin.co.jp) imited announced today that it has established a joint venture with South Korean chemical producer SK Chemicals to develop and sell polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) resins and compounds in Ulsan, South Korea. Construction of a 12,000-ton/yr…
B&W begins FEED work for FutureGen 2.0 Carbon Capture Project
The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W; Charlotte, N.C.; www.babcock.com) announced today that its subsidiary, Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc. (B&W PGG), has signed an agreement with the FutureGen Industrial Alliance to perform full front-end engineering and design (FEED)…
JGC & Fluor awarded EPC contract for major ethylene plant in the U.S.
JGC Corp. (Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.co.jp) announced today that a contract has been signed between Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP (Chevron Phillips Chemical) and JGC and Fluor Corp. (Irving, Tex.; www.fluor.com) to provide engineering, procurement, and construction services for the company's…
Technip and Zachry awarded polyethylene project in the U.S.
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) and Zachry Industrial (San Antonio, Tex.; www.zhi.com), in a partnership called Gulf Coast Partners, have been awarded a substantial contract to design and build two polyethylene (PE) plants for Chevron Phillips Chemical Company LP (Chevron Phillips…
A ‘new’ concept for CO2 capture: birds’ lungs
Researchers at the University of California Irvine (UCI, Irvine CA; www.chem.uci.edu) have taken a cue from nature in devising a way to remove carbon dioxide from fluegas. They are developing a synthetic membrane based on the design and function of…
Cross-coupling catalyst
A highly active nickel catalyst for performing cross-coupling reactions has been developed by the research group of professor Shu Kobayashi at the University of Tokyo (Japan; www.chem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp). The researchers were able to immobilize nickel nanoparticles onto a polymer support matrix…