In The News
Joint development of new organic semiconductors
Merck KGaA (Darmstadt; www.merck.de) and Plastic Logic GmbH (Dresden, both Germany; www.plasticlogic.com) today announced plans to jointly develop, test and commercialize Merck’s new organic semiconductors in Plastic Logic’s displays. The production and launch of these new materials are planned for…
Grace and Borealis sign catalyst agreement
W. R. Grace & Co. (Columbia, Md.; www.grace.com) today announced a new multi-year agreement to supply polypropylene (PP) catalysts to Borealis AG (Vienna, Austria; www.borealisgroup.com), a leading provider of chemical and innovative plastics solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed. Grace…
Pöyry awarded biomass boiler engineering project in U.S.
We Energies (Milwaukee, Wisc.; www.we-energies.com) has awarded Pöyry Oyj (Hessinki, Finland; www.poyry.com) an engineering contract for a €185-million capital project for a new 50-MW biomass cogeneration plant to be constructed at the Domtar paper mill facility in Rothschild, Wisc. The…
SGL & BMW: New carbon fiber plant for U.S.
SGL Group SE (Wiesbaden, Germany; www.sglcarbon.com) and BMW Group (Munich, Germany; www.bmwgroup.com) jointly announced today at an event in Seattle that their joint venture, SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers LLC, will build a state-of-the-art carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Moses Lake,…
Technip wins two contracts for Indian refinery
Technip (Paris, France; www.technip.com) has been awarded two contracts by Hindustan Petroleum Corp. (HPCL) for its diesel hydrotreater project in the Visakh petroleum refinery, on the east coast of India. The two contracts, which are scheduled to be completed by…
Pöyry awarded pulp-mill engineering contract in Brazil
Eldorado Celulose e Papel Ltda (Brazil) has awarded Pöyry Plc. (Helsinki, Finland; www.poyry.com) a contract for pre-engineering and preparatory work for mill infrastructure for a 1.5 million ton/yr bleached eucalyptus market pulp mill to be built in the state of…
A new gasification process moves a step closer to commercialization
Next year IHI Corp. (IHI; Tokyo, Japan; www.ihi.co.jp) plans to construct a demonstration plant in Indonesia that will gasify 50 ton/d of lignite (brown coal) into synthesis gas (syngas; predominantly hydrogen and carbon monoxide) using IHI’s twin-tower, bubbling fluidized-bed gasification process.…
Pilot plant to demonstrate advanced vapor-compression desalination nears completion
Researchers at Texas A&M University (College Station, Tex.; www.tamu.edu) are poised to complete assembly of a pilot project that seeks to demonstrate the commercial viability of advanced vapor-compression desalination, an updated version of a decades-old distillation technology first developed for…
A highly efficient microwave reactor continuously produces metallic nanoparticles
The process, developed by Masateru Nishioka at the Research Center for Compact Chemical Process, Institute of Advanced Science and Technology (AIST; Sendai; www.aist.go.jp) in collaboration with Shinko Kagaku (Koshigaya; www.shinkou-kagaku.co.jp), uses a microwave-assisted flow reactor developed by AIST and IDX…
A microwave-assisted process makes nanoparticles underwater
Professor Tetsu Yonezawa at the Materials Science Div. of Hokkaido University (Sapporo; labs.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/labo/limsa/english/), in collaboration with Arios, Inc. (Akishima; www.arios.co.jp) and Suga (Hokuto, all Japan; www.suga.ne.jp), has developed a microwave-assisted device that can continuously generate a plasma under water. In…