Mobile Navigation

In The News

Member Exclusive

Borealis invests in semi-commercial catalyst plant, and more plant watch and mergers news

December 14, 2009 — Borealis (Vienna, Austria; http://www.borealisgroup.com) has announced plans for a €75-million investment in Linz, Austria for a new semi-commercial catalyst plant to develop and scale up new catalysts for the production of innovative new polymers. Borealis has…

Member Exclusive

Demonstration for a wood-to-fuel via DME route

Haldor Topsøe (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) will demonstrate a new technology that converts wood to liquid fuels, as part of a $25-million project funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov). Among the partners in the project are…

Member Exclusive

January Chementator briefs

  Aiding crystal growth Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL; Upton, N.Y.; www.bnl.gov) have patented a method for absorbing hydrogen fluoride gas to enhance crystal growth. HF is commonly added to precursors to transfer crystalline order from a substrate to…

Member Exclusive

Launch of a 2nd-generation biofuel project in France

In light of the growing scarcity of oil resources, biofuels constitute an alternative solution, since they can serve as a complement to fossil fuels. As part of its policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the European Union is requiring…

Member Exclusive

AkzoNobel’s Ningbo plant starts production

This week, production will start at AkzoNobel’s (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com) chelates facility located at the company’s new €275 million multi-site in Ningbo, China. The startup of the first activities in Ningbo means that AkzoNobel is now the only major…

Member Exclusive

Süd-Chemie and GTC Technology form strategic alliance

Süd-Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; www.sud-chemie.com) and GTC Technology Inc. (Houston, Tex.; www.gtchouston.com) have reached agreement on a strategic alliance. As part of this alliance agreement, Süd-Chemie has acquired a 25% share in GTC. The partnership significantly strengthens Süd-Chemie‘s position in…

Member Exclusive

An integrated processes to produce nanostructured functional materials

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; Karlsruhe, Germany; www.kit.edu) and BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) have founded “IP3” (innovative products, intelligent particles, integrated processes), a joint laboratory for process technology in Karlsruhe (www.ip3.de). JointLab is run by the two partners on…

Member Exclusive

New MTP process modeled dynamically

Bayer Technology Services (BTS; Leverkusen; www.bayertechnology.com) collaborated with Lurgi GmbH (Frankfurt, both Germany; www.lurgi.com) to implement an operator training simulator (OTS) for a Lurgi’s new methanol-to-propylene (MTP) process. At the core of the MTP process is a complex, heterogeneously catalyzed reaction…

Member Exclusive

GEA supplies Air Cooled Condenser to Israel

GEA Group AG (Bochum, Germany; www.geagroup.com) received the order to design, manufacture and supply the Air Cooled Condenser — worth €10 million — for the extension of the 250-MW, gas-fired power plant Tzafit in Israel. The extension will increase the capacity…

Member Exclusive

gPROMS to include SAFT advanced thermodynamics

Process Systems Enterprise (PSE; London, U.K.; www.psenterprise.com) has announced an exclusive agreement with Imperial College London (ICL; www3.imperial.ac.uk) to provide the SAFT-VR advanced thermodynamic technology within its world-leading gPROMS advanced process modeling software. The Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (SAFT) approach…