A new process for generating sheets of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) eliminates several production steps used in the traditional process, offering greatly reduced energy use and improved polymer properties. Developed by Octal Petrochemicals LLC FZC (Muscat, Oman; www.octal.com), the direct-to-sheet PET…
A distillation process that consumes 85% less energy than traditional methods has been demonstrated by researchers from the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Industrial Science (www.energy.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp) and Nippon Steel Engineering (NSE, both Tokyo, www.nsc-eng.co.jp). The technique, which involves the incorporation…
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…
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…
Construction of a 1-hectare (ha) carbon-capture and recycling “synthesizer” demonstration plant has started at Tarong Power Station near the town of Nanango in southeast Queensland, Australia. Tarong Power Station comprises four coal-fired units with a gross generating capacity of 1,400…
Biobutanol milestones Last month, Cobalt Technologies (Cobalt; Mountain View, Calif.; www.cobalttech.com) announced two achievements toward commercial-scale production of bio-based n -butanol: the demonstration of its biomass pretreatment process, and the demonstration of its advanced-strain fermentation process. In cooperation with…
Invensys Operations Management (IOM; Plano, Tex.; iom.invensys.com), a division of Invensys, has expanded its certification for virtualization technology, making its industrial automation systems the first to be certified for high availability, disaster recovery and fault tolerance in supervisory control applications…
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 460,000 ton/yr ethylene plant and a 20,000 ton/yr butadiene extraction plant…
Royal DSM N.V. (Heerlen, the Netherlands; www.dsm.com) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding between its U.S.-based Business Unit DSM Functional Materials and Empresa Brasileira de Biotecnologia S.A. (Ebrabiotech; Araraquara, Brazil) for the launch of a new line of DSM-branded bio-based…