A new plant for the manufacture of oxidized polyethylene (PE) waxes went into operation at the BASF SE (www.basf.com) site in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The plant manufactures high quality oxidized waxes according to BASF’s own process. The new plant will improve…
Foster Wheeler AG (Zug, Switzerland; www.fwc.com) says that a subsidiary of its Global Engineering and Construction Group has been awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCm) services contract by Total Raffinage-Chimie for the revamp of a hydrodesulfurization unit at…
UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com), a Honeywell company, says it will invest $20 million to expand its production facility in Mobile, Ala., to produce adsorbents and catalysts. The investment will expand production of UOP’s Ionsiv Ion Exchange adsorbents, which…
IRPC Public Co., a company specialized in the production of petrochemical and petroleum-refining products in Thailand, has selected Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) to supply technologies for its new Upstream Project for Hygiene and Value Added Product (UHV project). The complex…
The technology group The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) and Sadara Chemical Co. (Sadara) recently signed a long-term contract that will see Linde supply Sadara with carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2) and ammonia (NH3) at a chemical complex now being…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) and Grupo Mexico have signed a contract for the delivery of process technology to Buenavista del Cobre's new second copper concentrator in Mexico. The contract value booked in the first quarter 2012 order intake is…
In conventional hydrogen and ammonia plants, the final conversion of CO to H2 occurs across the low-temperature shift (LTS) catalyst. This makes the LTS catalyst one of the most important catalysts in the plant — even small changes in its…
Plant Watch Wacker invests €40 million to expand polymer site in China March 5, 2012 — Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) is expanding its polymer activities by investing around €40 million to build two new production facilities at its…
A process to make polylactic acid (PLA) that requires no solvent or metal catalyst has been developed by Ricoh Co. (Ricoh; Tokyo, www.ricoh.com), in cooperation with Shizuoka University. Ricoh’s continuous PLA process is based on a commercially available organic catalyst…
A six-stage water treatment process involving electrocoagulation (EC) and multi-stage flash (MSF) distillation could improve options for the disposal of sludge and brine in applications that include the treatment of water from hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells (see…