Last month, Nippon Oil Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.eneos.co.jp) started production bio-ETBE (ethyl tertiary butyl ether), which will be blended into gasoline as an alternative to ethanol as an oxygenate. Nippon Petroleum Refining Co., a subsidiary of Nippon Oil, inaugurated the…
The power of osmosis Last month, Statkraft (Oslo, Norway; www.statkraft.com) opened what is claimed to be the world's first osmotic power plant. Although the prototype is very small (designed for 10 kW), the company believes data gained from the…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has commercialized a new cooling tower that offers increased cooling capacity with significantly lower emissions to air when cooling solutions in metallurgical processes. The new tower can be used in a wide range of process…
Transport systems that can encapsulate medications for release when and where needed are the subject of much research and development, especially for two potential synthetic vessels: liposomes and multilayered polymer capsules. Both, however, entail limitations. The permeability of polymer capsules,…
Last month at Filtech (Wiesbaden, Germany; October 13–15), Fil Max Inc. (Brea, Calif.; www.fmxfiltration.com) exhibited a new application for its FMX vortex-generating, membrane-filtration technology — treating wastewater from a biogas plant. Fil Max installed its first commercial system — three…
This month, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo; www.mhi.co.jp) is starting up a demonstration plant for producing bioethanol from the straw of rice and wheat. Located at the Futami Farm of MHI Kobe Shipbuilding Plant, the facility — developed in…
A contract for the world’s first commercial transport-gasification facility was awarded to KBR (Houston, www.kbr.com) by Beijing Guoneng Yinghui Clean Energy Engineering Co. for a coal power plant in China’s Guangdong province. The two-phase project will showcase KBR’s transport integrated…
Last month, PAS, Inc. (Houston; www.pas.com) launched Integrity Automation Genome Software, said to be the world’s first software capable of analyzing assets, functionality and dataflow within and among automation and production systems. Integrity provides a universal framework for aggregating and…
Acetonitrile, a byproduct of acrylonitrile production, has been in short supply for about a year because of a dramatic reduction in the demand for acrylonitrile, used in plastics for the manufacture of cars, appliances and electronic goods. A process modification…
Last month, in unveiling the S-Series release of its DeltaV digital automation system, Emerson Process Management (Austin, Tex.; www.emersonprocess.com) introduced electronic marshalling, a new concept in input/output (I/O) configuration that promises to streamline the design and installation of automation systems,…