At Chemical Engineering magazine, we focus the bulk of our coverage on the unit operations and equipment that tie the various segments of the chemical process industries (CPI) together. Regardless of industry sector, plant engineers perform chemical, mechanical and thermal…
Many readers of this magazine are familiar with the impact of a hurricane — both professionally and personally. Plants along the U.S. Gulf and the southern Atlantic Coasts, for instance, live with a high probability that one of these storms…
This past June, I lost possibly the most-influential person on my career as it stands today. My aunt and colleague, Sandra L. Baccinelli, former human resource manager at Worley Parsons, passed away on June 15th due to the effects of…
Given that readers of this magazine are employed across a wide spectrum of the chemical process industries (CPI), our editors go to great lengths to keep most of our content as broadly applicable as possible. In our technical articles, especially,…
Last month, the chemical process industries (CPI) lost an influential leader. Dr. Alfred Oberholtz died February 2, 2012 unexpectedly. He was 59. As former chairman of Dechema e.V. (www.dechema.de), Oberholz was often found at the center of a global…
As we round the corner from 2011 to 2012, economists are painting dimming pictures for global economic recovery. For instance, a report from IHS (Lexington, Mass.; www.ihs.com) chief economist Nariman Behravesh says, “World growth will slow in 2012 — the…
For over 109 years now, readers have looked to Chemical Engineering for practical how-to information that can be used directly on the job, plus the latest about what’s happening in, or will be affecting, the chemical process industries (CPI). While…
For a little over two decades now, China’s rise in the chemical process industries (CPI) has often appeared to outsiders like a runaway reaction. Low wages, a very low-valued currency and certain government policies have provided the perfect migration spot…
The United Nations (U.N.) has named 2011 the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). The designation has given rise to a host of programs, initiatives and events, the collection of which has afforded the chemical community a unique opportunity to pursue…
When I was growing up in western Pennsylvania, we used to have notebooks in school with a map of the state on the cover. Back then (1960s), local children quickly learned that by tracing the boundaries of certain counties, one…