Among the most pressing concerns for the chemical process industries (CPI) are weathering the global economic recession and dealing with anticipated carbon emissions regulations. Switching from oil and gas to biomass for fuel in a CPI plant is a relatively…
0 0 0 Siemens Energy (Erlangen, Germany; www.siemens.com/energy) has received an order from Vietnam for the supply of an air compressor train. Purchaser is Air Liquide Engineering South Asia. The compressor train will be deployed in a coal-to-urea production plant,…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen; germany; www.evonik.de) has expanded its product range for high-molecular-weight plasticizer alcohols and commissioned a plant for the production of the plasticizer alcohol 2-propyl heptanol (2-PH) at the Marl Chemical Park. The company’s investment in the plant,…
Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM; Decatur, Ill.; www.admworld.com) announced today the expansion of its European oilseed processing capabilities with the acquisition of ViaChem Group’s oilseed processing assets in Olomouc, Czech Republic. This facility, in the Eastern part of the Czech…
Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany;www.evonik.de) and Cristal Material Corp. (Taipei, Taiwan) have formed a new joint venture (JV) to manufacture high-quality glass lenses for next-generation light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which will marketed under the Savosil brand. The Evonik Cristal Materials Corp.…
Nippon Shokubai Co. (Nisshoku; Osaka, Japan; http://www.shokubai.co.jp) is developing a process for making acrylic acid from glycerin directly obtained as a byproduct from biodiesel-fuel (BDF) production. In 2007, Nisshoku demonstrated, under a grant from the Research Institute of Innovative Technology…
Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME; Aachen, Germany; http://www.ime.fraunhofer.de) have genetically engineered Russian dandelions to make it easier to extract the plant’s milky latex. The scientists identified the enzyme responsible for the rapid polymerization…
Veolia Water is awarded new contract for water treatment and reuse in Brazil September 15, 2009 — Under a 50/50 joint venture with Enfil, a Brazilian, water-treatment engineering company, t he Brazilian oil company Petrobras (Rio de Janeiro; http://www.petrobras.com) has…
The first commercially available, pentacene-based, organic semiconductor material is sufficiently soluble to render it amenable to solution-depositing methods, according to 3M (St. Paul, Minn.; http://www.3m.com). The company recently began marketing the product as semiconductor L-20856 (TIPS-pentacene) for low-cost transistors. Substitution…
This Fall, Sumitomo Chemical Co. (Tokyo; http://www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp) will begin shipping samples of Ilumio, a new photocatalyst, which is 10 times more effective than existing titanium oxide catalysts for deodorizing and antifouling under weak room light. The company plans to install…