In The News
Chementator: A new standard for viscosity measurement
The American Society of Testing Materials (Conshohocken, Pa.; www.astm.org) has developed a new standard for measuring viscosity: ASTM D 7483-08, Determination of Dynamic and Kinematic Viscosity of Liquids by Oscillating Piston Viscometer (OPV). The new ASTM method is part of…
Siemens acquires Elan Software Systems
Siemens Industry Sector (Erlangen, Germany; www.siemens.com/industry) is expanding its industrial portfolio by acquiring Elan Software Systems SA (Toulouse, France), an international software supplier for Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. This step will enable Industry Automation…
Chementator: High-throughput screening accelerates glycerol-to-chemicals research
Arkema (Colomes, France; www.arkema.com) and hte (Heidelberg, Germany; www.hte-company.de) have successfully concluded a research collaboration aimed at identifying new catalysts for the conversion of glycerol — a byproduct of biodiesel production — to acrolein (2-propenal) and acrylic acid. The collaboration,…
Chementator: A palladium catalyst makes primary amines in aqueous NH3
Primary amines are made in high yield by a palladium-catalyzed allylic amination reaction developed by Shu Kobayashi, a chemistry professor at the University of Tokyo (Japan; www.chem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp.). The reaction uses aqueous ammonia as the nitrogen source — the first time…
Chementator: Optical fiber sensing gets an NSF boost
Last January, Chiral Photonics, Inc. (Pine Brook, N.J.; www.chiralphotonics.com) was awarded $500,000 in a Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF; Washington, D.C.). The grant will be used to develop a new optical-fiber-sensor platform…
Cut installation costs in half with this orifice flowmeter
ABB Instrumentation (Warminster, Pa.; www.abb.com/instrumentation) has cut the cost of installing orifice-plate flowmeters by up to half with the launch of its OriMaster compact orifice DP flowmeter. The latest in the company’s FlowMaster range, the OriMaster comes fully factory configured…
Chementator: EPA proposes national reporting system for greenhouse gases
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, Washington D.C.) plans to set up the first U.S. national system for reporting emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The proposal marks the first step toward a program for climate control. "Through this…
April chementator briefs
Calibration-free pH The world’s first continuously self-calibrating pH measurement system was previewed at the Interphex show in New York last month by Sensorin (Burlingame, Calif; www.sensorin.com). According to the manufacturer, all currently available pH sensors including glass, optical and ion-selective…
Chementator: This new crystallizer reduces damage to larger crystals
With the exception of Oslo-type crystallizers, the main commercial crystallizers are agitated systems that use an agitator [agitated tank or draft-tube baffle (DTB)] or a circulation pump [forced circulation (FC) crystallizers]. In such systems, however, large crystals become damaged by…
Altana acquires additives business of DyStar group
The specialty chemicals Group Altana AG (Wesel, Germany; www.altana.com) has acquired the high-performance additives business of the Frankfurt based DyStar group effective as of March 30, 2009. The acquired business with annual of sales of about €7.5 million will be…