Technical & Practical
Magnetically Driven Pumps: An Overview
Magnetically driven (mag drive) centrifugal pumps have been in use since 1947 when the first magdrive pump was developed. Mag drives have always been the workhorse pump in applications with corrosive and often toxic fluid applications, and particularly over the…
Safe Sampling of Heat-Transfer Fluids
Collecting representative samples of heat-transfer fluid for routine quality checks falls short of the goal if safety or the environment is compromised. While users should consider their systems’ unique design features in consultation with their safety and health experts, incorporating…
Dry Separation Methods
The chemical process industries (CPI) have many applications that require classifying or separating solid materials. Examples of separation or classification processes include those operations that attempt to isolate specific material fractions according to particle size, scalp off the coarse fraction…
A Safety Checklist For Laboratories
Laboratories, such as those used for quality control in a production environment and those in research and development, are an integral part of the chemical process industries (CPI). Everyday demands of business can easily overtake safety when it comes to…
Activated Carbon
Sorbent materials are used commercially for bulk separation, as well as purification of both liquids and gases. This one-page reference provides manufacturing and application information on the most widely used industrial sorbent material — activated carbon. Four types of generic…
Extracting 1,3-Butadiene from a C4 Stream
The organic compound 1,3-butadiene is a petrochemical commodity used as a raw material for the production of rubbers and plastics, such as polybutadiene rubber (PR), styrene butadiene rubber (SBR), and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). These materials are mainly applied in…
New Horizons For Dividing Wall Columns
A dividing wall column (DWC) is an atypical distillation column with an internal, vertical partition wall that effectively accommodates — within one shell — two conventional distillation columns that are connected in series as required when separating a multicomponent feed…
Distillation Column Thermal Optimization: Employing Simulation Software
Several market conditions, including availability of light crude oilds in the U.S., low natural-gas prices and improving macroeconomics, are driving debottlenecking projects related to columns in both petroleum refining and chemical settings. Fortunately, the process-simulation tools that can be used…
Cooling Towers: Managing Tighter Water-Discharge Regulations
Historically, many large industrial facilities, including power plants, have relied on once-through cooling, in which the entire cooling water volume flows through the plant heat exchangers and then is discharged to the original source. However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency…
July Letters: Ethanol from the direct gasification of biomass
May Technology Profile I would like to ask the following questions and offer the following comments regarding the May 2014 Technology Profile (Ethanol from the Direct Gasification of Biomass, p. 43). • What is the overall yield of ethanol (in…