In The News
Chementator: Fuel from Rubber Seeds
In Malaysia, the raw material for biodiesel production has been palm oil. However, making biodiesel can conflict with the oil’s use as food, and growing palm oil (even for food) has caused the destruction of tropical forests in Borneo, Sumatra…
Chementator: Coal-Mine Vent Air
Megtec Systems (Glen Waverly, Victoria, Australia; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6902-542) has announced the first power plant fueled by methane emissions from coal-mine ventilation air. Traditionally, CH4 released during coal excavation requires dilution in ventilation air because it is explosive at concentrations between 5…
Chementator: With These Turbines, Waste Energy Can Now Be Recovered from Saturated Steam
Traditionally, the cogeneration of steam and electricity has been restricted to plants that generate superheated steam, making the recovery of energy losses from saturated steam impossible for many industrial sites ranging from distilleries to pharmaceutical plants and pulp-and-paper mills. At…
KBR lands contract for large NH3 plant in Venezuela
KBR (Houston, Tex.; www.kbr.com) has been awarded a $57-million contract by MAN Ferrostaal AG (MFS) to provide basic and detailed engineering services for an 1,800 m.t./d ammonia plant for Petroquímica de Venezuela, S.A. (Pequiven). The plant will be the first…
HPD to supply technologies for brine-production facility
HPD (Plainfield, Ill.; www.veoliawater.com HPD — a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies company — has been awarded the supply of crystallization and evaporation equipment to TETRA Technologies, Inc. for their new facility located near El Dorado, Arkansas. The new plant…
Solvay Indupa will produce bioethanol-based vinyl in Brasil
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) announces today that the Board of its affiliate Solvay Indupa has approved a further $135-million-investment program to expand and increase the competitiveness of its vinyls production plant of Santo Andre, Brazil. This second stage of…
Rockwell/Dassault to integrate digital factory and plant operations
Rockwell Automation (www.rockwellautomations.co.uk), a leading global provider of industrial automation power, control and information solutions and Dassault Systèmes (www.3ds.com), a world leader in 3D and product life cycle management (PLM) solutions, recently announced that they have signed a memorandum of…
Producing cleaner-burning fuels from CO2
UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop,com), a Honeywell company, announced today that it will partner with the University of Southern California's (USC) Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute to develop and commercialize new technology to transform carbon dioxide into clean-burning alternative fuels.…
New distillate hydrocracker starts up at Dalian refinery
Total (Paris, France; www.total.com) announces the startup of a new distillate hydrocracker at the Wepec petroleum refinery in Dalian, China, in which the Group holds a 22.4% stake. Representing a total investment of $240 million, the new conversion unit increases…
$24-million investment planned for commercial biofuel in Midwestern U.S.
Dynamotive Energy Systems Corp., and its subsidiary, Dynamotive USA, Inc., announced plans to build a $24-million, commercial, industrial-scale biofuel plant in Willow Springs, Mo. — the first of its kind in the U.S., according to the firm. The announcement comes…