The plant engineering company Uhde Inventa-Fischer (Domat/Ems, Switzerland; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) has received an order from SK Chemicals Co., Ltd. (Korea) to build the first plant for the continuous production of polyphenylene sulfide (PPS). The new plant will be integrated into the…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will increase its global capacities for producing the chemical intermediate 1,4-butanediol (BDO) and the BDO derivative PolyTHF (polytetramethylene ether glycol; PTMEG) within the coming two years. BASF’s annual BDO capacity will rise from 535,000 to…
Air Liquide (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com) recently started up the world’s largest helium purification and liquefaction unit, a turnkey project at Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar. The new unit’s production capacity is approximately 38 million m3/yr of helium. The high technologies…
Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com) has entered into a definitive agreement to form a joint venture (JV) with OJSC KuibyshevAzot (Moscow, Russia; www.kuazot.ru), in central Russia’s Samara region, to produce and sell industrial gases. The JV will produce on-site oxygen,…
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) plans to build a new state-of-the-art facility to manufacture vanillin in Zhenjiang City, in China's Jiangsu Province, boosting its production capacities by 40% and enabling the Group to better serve the fast-growing Asian market. Solvay…
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) was awarded by the Hyundai-Wison consortium a significant contract to supply its proprietary technology as well as engineering and procurement services for two hydrogen reformers in Venezuela. These 135-million standard cubic feet per day (151,000 Nm3/h)…
On May 9, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels surpassed 400 ppm in Mauna Loa, Hawaii for the first time since measurements began there in 1958. This concentration is well above the 280 ppm levels occurring prior to the Industrial Revolution of…
NEDO and Hitachi Ltd. (Tokyo, www.hitachi.com) have developed a new combustion technology that could reduce the emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) to below 10 ppm without the addition of diluents. As part of the CCS-IGCC project (carbon capture and…
ODC for Cl2 production Last month, ThyssenKrupp Uhde GmbH (Dortmund; www.uhde.eu) and Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS; Leverkusen, both Germany; www.bayermaterialscience.com) commercially launched — worldwide — the oxygen depolarized cathode (ODC) technology, which BMS and ThyssenKrupp Uhde/UhdeNora developed to improve…
Plant Watch Uhde Inventa-Fischer to build commercial-scale Nofia plant June 12, 2013 — Uhde Inventa-Fischer AG (Berlin, Germany and Domat/Ems, Switzerland; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) has won a contract to build the world’s first commercial-scale plant for production of Nofia, a flame retardant…