In The News
A new spin on reducing membrane-filtration fouling
Last month at Filtech (Wiesbaden, Germany; October 13–15), Fil Max Inc. (Brea, Calif.; www.fmxfiltration.com) exhibited a new application for its FMX vortex-generating, membrane-filtration technology — treating wastewater from a biogas plant. Fil Max installed its first commercial system — three…
Demonstration of a straw-to-bioethanol process
This month, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo; www.mhi.co.jp) is starting up a demonstration plant for producing bioethanol from the straw of rice and wheat. Located at the Futami Farm of MHI Kobe Shipbuilding Plant, the facility — developed in…
First commercial transport, coal-gasifier contract awarded
A contract for the world’s first commercial transport-gasification facility was awarded to KBR (Houston, www.kbr.com) by Beijing Guoneng Yinghui Clean Energy Engineering Co. for a coal power plant in China’s Guangdong province. The two-phase project will showcase KBR’s transport integrated…
Integrity Software: first to map the automation genome
Last month, PAS, Inc. (Houston; www.pas.com) launched Integrity Automation Genome Software, said to be the world’s first software capable of analyzing assets, functionality and dataflow within and among automation and production systems. Integrity provides a universal framework for aggregating and…
A boost for acetonitrile
Acetonitrile, a byproduct of acrylonitrile production, has been in short supply for about a year because of a dramatic reduction in the demand for acrylonitrile, used in plastics for the manufacture of cars, appliances and electronic goods. A process modification…
Electronic marshalling uproots 35 years of spaghetti wiring practices
Last month, in unveiling the S-Series release of its DeltaV digital automation system, Emerson Process Management (Austin, Tex.; www.emersonprocess.com) introduced electronic marshalling, a new concept in input/output (I/O) configuration that promises to streamline the design and installation of automation systems,…
Scaleup planned for a scale-reducing RO process
Rotec Ltd. (Ashkelon, Israel; http://www.rotec-water.com), a technology-transfer company of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGN; Beer-Sheva, Israel), is developing a new desalination technology that promises to increase the water-recovery rate of reverse osmosis (RO) systems from 75–85% up to 95%.…
BASF and CSM to develop biobased succinic acid; and more
BASF announces its intention to cease activities in Feluy, Belgium October 22, 2009 — BASF Antwerpen N.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; http://www.basf.com) has announced its intention to close its 115,000-ton/yr maleic anhydride (MA) production facility…
November chementator briefs
Process Systems Enterprise Ltd. (PSE; London, U.K.; www.psenterprise.com) is to make new advanced thermodynamic modeling tools for prediction of liquid and gas thermodynamic properties available through its gPROMS process-modeling environment. The technology makes it possible to considerably speed up the…
AEP and Alstom commission CCS project
Federal and state government officials today joined executives from American Electric Power (AEP; Columbus, Ohio; www.aep.com) and Alstom (Paris, France; www.alstom.com) at AEP’s Mountaineer Plant to formally commission the world’s first project to both capture and store carbon dioxide from…