In The News
Honeywell to acquire combustion equipment vendor Callidus Technologies
Honeywell has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Callidus Technologies (Tulsa, Oklahoma; www.callidus.com), a manufacturer of custom-designed and fabricated industrial combustion products, including refinery burners and controls, flares and thermal oxidizers. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions, including…
IPS to supply control technology to world’s first H2 power plant
Invensys Process Systems (IPS; Plano, Tex.; www.invensys.com), a global technology, software and consulting firm, today announced that it has been selected by Enel to supply control and automation technology for the world’s first hydrogen-fuelled power plant, to be constructed in…
GTC Technology selected for large aromatics project at Rafo
Petrochemical Holding GmbH (Vienna, Austria), has chosen eight proprietary process technologies of GTC Technology (Houston, Tex.; www.gtchouston.com) — CrystPX, GT-BTX PluS, GT-BTX, GT-IsomPX, GT-TransAlk, GT-Aromatization, Pygas Hydrotreating, and Hydrodesulfurization — for a major petrochemical project in its 3 MM ton/yr…
Solvay acquires ASCC in Egypt
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) has entered into a final agreement for the acquisition of 100% of Alexandria Sodium Carbonate Company (ASCC) from Holding Company for Chemical Industries (HCCI), an Egyptian State-owned holding company. The operation is part of Solvay’s…
Wacker expands polysilicon production
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany) plans to construct a new polysilicon production plant at its Nunchritz site (Saxony, Germany) with a nominal annual capacity of 10,000 metric tons (m.t.). The first batch of polysilicon from this “capacity expansion phase 9”…
Metso’s automation for renewable diesel plants
Metso Corp. (Helsinki, Finland; www.metso.com) will deliver comprehensive automation and safety solutions for two greenfield plants being built by Neste Oil Corp. in Singapore and in Rotterdam, Netherlands. As agreed with the customer, the values of the orders will not…
Chementator: Improving leather
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…
Chementator: A new method for catalyst design
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…
Chementator: Decontaminate soil using electrons to make microbe’s meals
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…
Chementator: This graphene-based catalyst speeds cellulose saccrification, without H2SO4 waste
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…