In The News
Chementator briefs for August
Bioplastics DSM Engineering Plastics (Sittard, Netherlands; www.dsm.com) has introduced EcoPaXX, a biobased, high-performance engineering plastic that is said to have a zero carbon footprint (100% carbon neutral from cradle to grave). Approximately 70% of EcoPaXX is made from building blocks…
A silver-based antimicrobial
Pure Bioscience (El Cajon, Calif.; www.purebio.com) has developed silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC), the first antimicrobial approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.) in 30 years, with applications in the pharmaceutical, personal care, household, food and textile markets.…
Scaleup for a downer FCC process
In October, Nippon Oil Corp. (Tokyo, Japan;www.eneos.co.jp) will start constructing a high-severity fluidized-catalytic cracking (HS-FCC) unit, the first in the world that can produce large amounts of propylene from heavy fuel oils. The unit, located at Mizushima Refinery (Kurashiki-City), will…
Diamond lubricant cuts friction and increases equipment life
The lifetime of steel bearings can be extended by up to eight times by a new synthetic diamond lubricant, according to its developer, NanoLube, Inc. (Lombard, Ill.; www.diamondlube.com). The lubricant consists of 0.1–4-nm diamond spheres that are dispersed in a…
Making fine particles of inhalable drugs
A team from the School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia; www.unsw.edu.au), has developed a process for the micronization of insulin called Arise (Atomized Rapid Injection for Solvent Extraction). According to BioParticle…
DSM to sell urea-licensing business to Maire Tecnimont
Royal DSM N.V. (Heerlen, Netherlands; www.dsm.com) and Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. (Rome, Italy; www.mairetecnimont.it) announce today that they have reached an agreement for the sale of DSM’s urea-licensing subsidiary Stamicarbon B.V. to Maire Tecnimont for a total consideration of 38-million euros…
BASF extends joint R&D program with IMEC
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and IMEC (Leuven, Belgium; www2.imec.be), Europe's leading independent nanoelectronics research center, have announced today that they are extending their joint development program. The process chemicals which the two partners plan to develop as part of…
GEA builds automatic dairy plant in Chile
The Process Technology Segment of GEA Group AG (Bochum, Germany; www.geagroup.com) has received an order for about 9-million euros from Nestlé to build the liquid processing part of a Growing-Up Milk plant in Chile. The new plant will be located…
Agilent acquires Varian for $1.5 billion
Agilent Technologies, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.; www.agilent.com) and Varian, Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.; www.varianinc.com) have signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition by Agilent of Varian, a leading worldwide supplier of scientific instrumentation and associated consumables for life science and…
Altana acquires Water Ink Technologies
The specialty chemicals Group Altana AG (Wesel, Germany; www.altana.com) has entered into an agreement to acquire the business of the North American company Water Ink Technologies, Inc. The company produces primarily water-based and UV inks, coatings and varnishes for narrow…