Plant Watch AkzoNobel Chemical Island starts supply to world’s biggest single-line pulp mill March 7, 2013 — AkzoNobel’s (Amsterdam, The Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) new €90-million Jupiá Chemical Island in Brazil has begun supplying the Eldorado Brasil Celulose pulp mill, which is…
A process developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (www.uta.edu) uses copper-based semiconductor nanoscale-rod arrays and solar radiation to carry out a photoelectroreduction of carbon dioxide to methanol. The process offers a pathway to utilize the greenhouse…
Toyo Engineering Corp. (Toyo; Chiba, Japan; www.toyo-eng.co.jp) has been jointly awarded with ENPPI, an engineering company under the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum, a contract to build a 400,000 ton/yr polyethylene (PE) plant as part of Ethydco's petrochemical complex to be…
Following a positive feasibility study, American Vanadium Corp. (Vancouver, B.C.; www.americanvanadium.com) will construct the world’s first sulfuric acid heap-leach mining operation for vanadium at a specific geologic formation in central Nevada, known as Gibellini Hill. The project is currently in…
A newly launched gas chromatography (GC) device from Analytical Pixels Technology (APIX; Grenoble, France; www.apixtechnology.com), called GCAP, uses a nanoscale silicon-beam resonator to detect mass. A piezoelectric cross-beam initiates the vibration of the nanoscale silicon resonator, and the resonance frequency…
China Petrochemical International Ltd. (Sinopec International), Sinopec Sichuan Vinylon Works (SVW) and Davy Process Technology (Davy; London, England; www.davyprotech.com), a wholly owned Johnson Matthey subsidiary, are pleased to announce the acceptance of a 771,000 metric ton (m.t.) per year methanol…
ThyssenKrupp Polysius has won a contract from PT Holcim Indonesia Tbk., Jakarta, to build a second cement plant near the town of Tuban on the northern coast of the island of Java. The contract is worth around $250 million and…
UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com), a Honeywell company, says that its UOP C3 Oleflex process technology has been selected by Williams (Tulsa, Okla.) to produce propylene, a valuable petrochemical used in plastics production. The selection is the sixth win…
PPC (Thann, France; www.ppchemicals.com), a company of WeylChem Group (Frankfurt am Main, Germany; www.weylchem.com), the fine chemicals platform of International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG; Luxembourg), has secured bank financing from Commerzbank for the conversion of the mercury electrolysis plant. The…
Uhde Inventa-Fischer (Domat/Ems, Switzerland; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) and JSC Grodno Azot PTC Khimvolokno (Belarus) have successfully commissioned a plant for the production of polyamide 6. The multiline plant is located in Grodno, Western Belarus, has a capacity of 91,000 metric tons (m.t.)…