In The News
WorleyParsons: Contract for Canadian bitumen project
WorleyParsons Ltd. (North Sydney, Australia; www.worleyparsons.com) has been awarded a contract for the engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction (EPC) of the field facilities at the Husky Oil – Sunrise Energy Project. The Sunrise steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) plant site is…
Dow to increase ethane cracking capabilities
The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) plans to increase ethane cracking capabilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast over the next two to three years, and improve its ethane cracking capabilities by 20–30% in this timeframe. In addition, Dow announced…
Lanxess: New plant for ion exchange resins in India
Today, specialty chemicals group Lanxess AG Leverkusen, Germany; www.lanxess.com) opened Asia’s most state-of-the-art plant for ion exchange resins in India. The new plant was constructed over a period of two years in the new chemical park in Jhagadia in the…
Graham Corp. awarded three orders
Graham Corp. (Batavia, N.Y.; www.graham-mfg.com), a designer and manufacturer of critical equipment for the oil refining, petrochemical and power industries, has been awarded three orders totaling approximately $4.8 million for specialized condensers, liquid ring pump packages and ejector systems to…
Technip awarded major contract in Algeria
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) has been awarded by Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company, a contract for the refurbishment and revamping of the Algiers refinery. This lump sum turnkey contract, worth approximately 67.9-billion Algerian Dinars ($908 million), will last 38…
December Chementator Briefs
Catalyst recycling A new process for selectively dissolving either palladium or gold from mixed-metal catalyst systems could offer a way to improve recycling of those materials. In traditional noble-metal recycling with aqua regia (mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids), metals…
Nanoclusters that selectively catalyze oxidation reactions
Professor Shu Kobayashi, University of Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan; www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp), has discovered that bimetallic nanoclusters can catalyze the oxidation of alcohols. Kobayashi’s group has demonstrated the ability to control the reaction pathways of alcohol oxidation to aldehydes, carboxylic acids or esters…
Total awards Technip with hydrocracker contract
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) has been awarded by Total an engineering, procurement services and construction management contract to increase the capacity of the hydrocracker at the Normandy refinery located in Gonfreville, France. This project, which is part of a larger…
Miniature ESR spectrometer facilitates study of free radicals
A miniaturized electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometer developed by Active Spectrum Inc. (Foster City, Calif.; www.activespectrum.com) can facilitate studies of chemical species with unpaired electrons, such as organic free radicals and transition metal complexes. Available in both online and benchtop…
A more efficient use of renewable thermal energy
A team of engineers from the Center for Energy Technology, University of Adelaide (South Australia; www.adelaide.edu.au), the University of Nantes (France) and Mie University (Japan), have proposed a more efficient way to generate power from low to medium temperature (90–260°C)…