In The News
Solvay increases Tecnoflon production capacity
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) has decided to increase the production capacity for peroxide-curable (PC) fluoroelastomers, commercialized under the trademark Tecnoflon, in the Solvay Solexis plant at Spinetta Marengo, Italy. Solvay is investing €10 million in the capacity increase, which is…
Outotec: Iron-ore sinter plant for SAIL in India
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has won an order from Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) for the design and delivery of an iron-ore sinter plant for SAIL’s Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh. Outotec will implement the turnkey plant project…
Hangzhou Hangding Nylon orders PA-6 plant
Uhde Inventa-Fischer (Domat/Ems, Switzerland, and Berlin, Germany; www.uhde-inventa-fischer.com) and Hangzhou Hangding Nylon Tech. Co., Ltd., a company under Sanding Holding Group, Zhejiang Province, P.R. China, signed a contract for the delivery of a PA-6 polymerization plant to produce textile grade…
A promising way to reduce the cost of producing oil from oil sands
Roughly 80% of the heavy oil in Alberta’s oil sands is too deep for open-pit mining, the most common production method at present. Consequently, this oil will have to be recovered by in situ methods, such as steam-assisted gravity drainage…
Food from algae
TNO (Delft; www.tno.nl) and Ingrepro Renewables B.V. (Borculo, both the Netherlands; www.ingrepro.nl) have started a joint-research project to extract food ingredients from algae. Proteins, which account for up to 60 wt.% of algae, could serve as a sustainable alternative to…
Sugar-derived compounds can be model solidifiers for oil spills
Professor George John and graduate student Swapnil Jadhav at the City College of New York (www.ccny.cuny.edu) are lead authors of a paper on a class of compounds, known as phase-selective gelators, that can selectively solidify an oil phase in water.…
September chementator briefs
Worlds largest PDH unit Lummus Technology (Bloomfield, N.J.), a CB&I company (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.cbi.com), has been awarded a contract by Tianjin Bohua Petrochemical Co. for the license and engineering design of a grassroots propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit to…
Dow Corning considers biomass plant to produce steam and electricity; and more business news
Dow Corning considers biomass plant to produce steam and electricity August 20, 2010 — Dow Corning’s (Midland, Mich.; www.dowcorning.com) Midland manufacturing site is considering the installation of a biomass-powered energy facility to provide a renewable, reliable and cost-effective supply of…
ABB wins three-year maintenance-partnership agreement in Oman
ABB (Houston; www.abb.com) has announced that its local company in Oman, ABB Oman LLC has signed a three-year maintenance agreement for Vale’s (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; www.vale.com) state-of-the-art iron-ore pellet plant and distribution center in Oman. This maintenance partnership agreement…
Enzyme-based method could make CO2 capture economically viable
Codexis (Redwood City, Calif.; www.codexis.com) and CO2 Solution (Quebec City, Canada; www.co2solution.com) have jointly developed a cost-effective method for capturing carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Solvent-based systems for capturing CO2 are relatively well-understood, but they have not been widely…