As part of the European BioDME project, Haldor Topsøe A/S (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) and Chemrec will design and build a new plant for producing dimethyl ether (DME). Located at the Smurfit Kappa paper mill in Piteå, Sweden, the facility will…
Last month, Lanxess AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.lanxess.com) launched Levotan X-Cel, an polymer mixture based on expandable microcapsules, for retannage in leather processing. With a diameter of 5 – 20 µm, the microcapsules are small enough to penetrate into the collagen…
A method for identifying less-expensive catalysts, compared to commercial, precious-metal-based ones, is starting to deliver results by researchers at the Center for Atomic-scale Materials Design, Dept. of Physics, Technical University of Denmark (CAMD; Lyngby; www.camd.dtu.dk) and their collaborators. The computer-aided…
Plant Watch LyondellBasell grants license for new plant in the Slovak Republic September 23, 2008 — Slovnaft Petrochemicals, s.r.o., a subsidiary of the MOL Group, has selected LyondellBasell’s Lupotech T technology for a new 220,000-metric tons per year (m.t./yr) low-density…
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL; Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov) has developed a new xenobiotics bioremediation system that can be used to treat contaminated soil and water. Whereas conventional bioelectrical remediation methods rely on the addition of chemicals to provide electron…
In order to make ethanol from cellulose, the polysaccharide must first be broken down into sugars (saccharrified) that can be fermented. Normally, this hydrolysis reaction is catalyzed by sulfuric acid or enzymes. However, H2SO4 -based hydrolysis generates spent acid, which…
In an effort to increase its operational flexibility, Oxea GmbH (Oberhausen, Germany; www.oxea-chemicals.com) has decided to produce butyric acid at its North American (N.A.) production site in Bay City, Texas. The existing carboxylic-acids production plant will receive significant upgrading in…
BASF Catalysts LLC (Iselin, N.J.; www.basf.com) has completed a significant debottlenecking project that has increased capacity at its production facility in Tarragona, Spain. The 25% capacity increase will help meet growing global demand for polypropylene catalysts. The expansion was completed…
Caloric Anlagenbau GmbH (Munich, Germany; www.caloric.com) has won the contract for another Hydrogen Generation Plant in France. Caloric will provide engineering, procurement and commissioning services for a new hydrogen plant and the corresponding distributed control system (DCS), using Caloric's HC…
IDEX Corp. (Northbrook, Ill.; www.idexcorp.com) today announced the acquisition of Richter Chemie-Technik (Kempen, Germany), a leading provider of premium quality lined pumps, valves and control equipment for the chemical, fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Richter’s corrosion resistant fluoroplastic lined products…