With an investment of €30 million, AkzoNobel (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) is boosting capacity in Sweden for its Expancel expandable microspheres in order to meet growing global demand. Used as a blowing agent or lightweight filler, the Expancel product line…
Ineos Technologies (Runcorn, U.K.; www.ineos.com) has announced that its Bichlor membrane chlorine technology has been selected by Olin Corp. for the conversion of its Charleston, Tenn. site. In addition Ineos Technologies will supply Olin Corp. with a complete process design…
Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) and the Shaw Group Inc. (Baton Rouge, La.; www.shawgrp.com) have been selected to license a next-generation catalytic cracking technology that will help refiners maximize the production of propylene and other high-value refinery products. The advanced technology, High…
Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) has initiated its third joint research and development (R&D) project with the State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University (China; www.tju.edu.cn/english) on advanced chemical-engineering sciences. This project, which focuses on distillation and…
The Air Liquide Group (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com) has signed long-term agreement with Severstal, Russia’s leading steel producer. Air Liquide will supply oxygen, nitrogen and argon to Severstal’s new steel plant in Balakovo, located in the region of Saratov (Volga Federal…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has acquired the Vertical Pressure Filter (VPF) technology and its intellectual property rights from Australian Process Technology Pty Ltd (North Fremantle, Australia), a filters supplier for the alumina refining industry. The parties have agreed not…
Bechtel (Frederick, Md.; www.bechtel.com), SolFocus, Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.; www.solfocus.com) and developer Sol Orchard announced today that a 1-MW high concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) power plant was completed for Nichols Farms, a pistachio farm in Hanford, Calif. The solar plant, which…
Last month, at the AIChE Spring Meeting in Chicago, Henry Kister, director of Fractionation Technology at Fluor Corp. (Aliso Viejo, Calif.; www.fluor.com) presented a patent pending process (U.S. Patent Application WO/2011/016797) that promises to cut energy demand and capital costs…
A new emulsification process, known as Smooth, has been developed by Velocys, Inc. (Columbus, Ohio; www.velocys.com) — a member of the Oxford Catalyst Group Plc. (Abingdon, U.K.) — and is now ready for testing at the commercial scale. Smooth technology…
Last month, Brain AG (Zwingenberg; www.brain-biotech.de) and Dechema e.V. (Frankfurt am Main, both Germany; www.dechema.de) began a collaboration in the biotechnological production of perillic acid — a patented natural monoterpene owned by Brain, with promising applications as a bioactive compound…