Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers Construction of new production units has an undesirable byproduct: trash. Sometimes the hard question is— Who will clean? The author was the startup superintendent on a new unit in an olefins…
As the frequency and sophistication of industrial cyberattacks continue to rise, chemical companies can follow guidance from industry and government directives to help define their organization’s specific cyber-risk profile Cybersecurity risk is a key topic for all companies, due, in…
Comprehensive planning, along with appropriate level-measurement technologies and safety instrumented systems, can empower plant personnel to significantly reduce the likelihood and severity of hazardous chemical spills In most industries that manufacture, use or store chemicals and other hazardous liquids, a…
Industrial gases are critical for a wide range of applications throughout the chemical process industries (CPI). Many of these gases must be separated from others, such as nitrogen from air, or hydrogen from natural gas using physical gas-separation techniques that…
Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers Many cooling-water systems do not have flowmeters. This is a tale about a cooling-water flowmeter that made a difference. As a startup superintendent at ICI Australia in the late 1970s, the…
Understanding the basic principles of operation and construction designs of glass membrane sensors can help in choosing the right pH sensor One of the most critical measurements in liquid chemical processing is pH. In this article, the importance of the…
Predictive maintenance (PdM) programs can provide advanced warning of equipment problems and potential failures. This one-page reference provides brief descriptions of six common predictive maintenance methods. Infrared thermography Continuous monitoring of equipment temperature over time has the potential to identify…
Ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber is a terpolymer elastomer derived from ethylene and propylene, along with small amounts of a non-conjugated diene as a third monomer (Figure 1). With a completely saturated polymer backbone, this random elastomeric copolymer exhibits…
Operational troubleshooting guidance is provided for several scenarios involving trapped non-condensable gases in distillation towers Non-condensable gases are often present in distillation towers, either expectedly or unexpectedly. When they do appear, or when the quantity of non-condensable gases varies from…
Chemical process industries (CPI) facilities often present a number of potential respiratory hazards, including airborne particles, toxic chemicals and low-oxygen environments, that may require the use of respiratory personal-protective equipment (PPE). This reference outlines the major categories for respiratory protection…