An underground coal-to-liquids (UCTL) technology is undergoing pilot testing at Oak Park, near Melbourne Australia, where a metric ton of brown coal is expected to yield about one barrel of oil suitable for use as refinery feedstock on an oil-parity…
At the 2nd Annual ChemInnovations Conference and Expo (Houston; September 13–15), Hemi-O Technologies LLC (Corpus Christi, Tex.; dixonengineering@gmail.com) introduced its patent-pending technology that enables external access to individual tubes in a heat exchanger while the exchanger is in service and…
A technique that improves the efficiency of ethanol plants by lowering the cost of dewatering the byproduct stillage (a slurry of corn solids and water) from the fermentation process has been developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s…
Professor Yuki Taniguchi at the Chemicals Research Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan, www.res.titech.ac.jp/~gosei/taniguchi/index.html) has developed a new catalyst system that decomposes volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at lower temperatures than that required by conventional catalysts. The SILP (supported ionic liquid…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) and Russian company RusBiotech International have established the joint venture (JV) Russkie Biotechnologii for manufacturing L-lysine in Russia by means of a biotechnological process. Vassily Golubev, governor of the Rostov-on-Don region, and Vadim Varshavsky,…
The hydrogen demand for a new polysilicon facility being built in Taiwan will be covered with units from Caloric Anlagenbau GmbH (Gräfelfing, Germany; www.caloric.com). With this contract Caloric establishes itself as a competent and reliable partner for this growing industry,…
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; www.mhi.co.jp) and Mitsubishi Corp. (MC; both Tokyo, Japan; www.mitsubishicorp.com) have agreed with the Indonesian government to collaborate in a large-scale substitute natural gas (SNG) synthesis project utilizing Indonesia's abundant low rank coal (LRC) which is…
The Dow Chemical Co. ((Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) and K2 Pure Solutions (K2 Pure; Pittsburgh, Calif.; www.k2pure.com) today celebrated the successful start-up of a new chlor-alkali plant at Dow’s Pittsburg, Calif. site. The new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility will produce bleach to…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has signed a contract with EuroChem (Moscow, Russia; www.eurochem.ru), to sell its fertilizer activities in Antwerp, Belgium. BASF also plans to sell its 50% share of the joint-venture (JV) PEC-Rhin (Ottmarsheim, France) to EuroChem. The…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has agreed with Mintal Group Co., a large manufacturer of ferrochrome and stainless steel, on the design and delivery of a new ferrochrome plant to Baotou, in the Inner Mongolia, China. The contract value is…