In The News
White Martins starts up New ASU for Braskem in Brazil
White Martins Gases Industriais Ltda., the Brazil-based subsidiary of Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com) has started up a new air separation unit (ASU) in the state of Alagoas, in Brazil´s northeast region. As part of the long-term contract, Praxair will…
Lonza to expand ADC manufacturing capacity
Lonza (Basel, Switzerland; www.lonza.com) plans to invest CHF14 million (about $15 million) to expand Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) manufacturing capacity in Visp, Switzerland. Oncology therapeutics including ADCs represent one of the fastest growing segments of the pharma and biotech industry…
Technip awarded FEED contract for proposed new ammonia plant in Louisiana
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) was awarded by The Mosaic Co. (www.mosaicco.com) the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract, as well as preparation of the corresponding engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) proposal, for a new ammonia plant under consideration by the…
BASF increases global capacity for hexanediol
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) will increase its annual global capacity for manufacturing the chemical intermediate 1,6-hexanediol (HDO) by more than 20% to more than 50,000 ton/yr by 2014. For this purpose, the company will further optimize its production processes,…
Metso acquires ExperTune
Metso Corp. (Helsinki, Finland; www.metso.com) has acquired U.S. software company ExperTune Inc. (Milwaukee, Wisc.). ExperTune's products are widely used as software tools to analyze and monitor the performance of industrial processes and to identify the associated maintenance and…
Endress+Hauser sets up a new subsidiary in Indonesia
In over two decades since it entered the market, Endress+Hauser Endress+Hauser (Reinach, Switzerland; www.endress.com), a global leader in instrumentation and process automation solutions, has established itself in Indonesia as a supplier of high-quality measuring instruments and solutions. To strengthen this…
Chementator Briefs
Soy polyurethanes Scientists at Battelle (Columbus, Ohio; www.battelle.org) have developed a water-based polyurethane (PU) that uses soy oil instead of petroleum to produce the polyol precursor. Whereas standard water-based PUs require adding N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) tolower viscosity, Battelle's process eliminates…
A low-cost route to ultrathin Pt films
Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; Gaithersburg, Md.; www.nist.gov) have developed a relatively simple, fast and effective method of depositing uniform, ultrathin layers of platinum atoms onto a surface. The technique may lead to a…
Nanoparticles help generate hydrogen
A research team is using clusters of gold atoms at sub-nanometer sizes to enhance the photocatalytic production of hydrogen from water. Sustainable H2 production from a non-fossil-fuel source could have significant environmental and energy-efficiency benefits. The scientists, from Stony Brook…
Scale up planned for a new CO2-capture process
Plans are underway to field-test a process that removes more than 90 % of the carbon dioxide from power-plant flue gas, while reducing both the energy input and operating costs by 50 % compared to conventional amine-based CO2-scrubbing technology. The…