Although wastewater streams with high organic content — such as those from breweries and dairy facilities — can be difficult to treat and expensive to dispose of, there is potential to valorize their carbon content with the right process. Based…
Eighty years ago, in 1944, Dr. Hans Müller from Winterthur, Switzerland filed a patent application for a device designed to process liquid substances at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Bern. Liquids prone to fouling on heated surfaces,…
A new demonstration plant is upcycling gypsum (calcium sulfate) — a material that is typically challenging to dispose of — at a metal-refining site using a process that combines salt-splitting electrolysis, caustic direct-air capture (DAC) and mineralization. Travertine Technologies, Inc.…
Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers This conversation started in a course I was presenting in Sydney, Australia. I was about 15 minutes into my presentation when a delegate from a major petroleum refinery stopped me. “How…
The push toward decarbonization is driving an increased interest in electrochemical processes. Here, the authors share their experience in industrializing these processes The field of electrochemistry offers a disruptive methodology to revolutionize the chemical process industries (CPI) by electrifying processes.…
Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL; Upton, N.Y.; www.bnl.gov) and collaborating institutions have engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane into methanol in a one-step reaction. The system could help make better use of “stranded” natural gas…
Bio-based succinic acid has been explored as a renewable building-block for a host of chemicals and polymers, but its production process remains costly due largely to the complicated purification process that generates a large waste stream. Now, researchers at the…
A pilot project evaluating the Electro-Ceramic Desalination (ECD) technology developed by Membrion Inc. (Seattle, Wash.; www.membrion.com) successfully recovered clean water from the reject water of a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination process at a commercial manufacturing site. Membrion’s technology uses ceramic…
This article made available to you by: Previously used process equipment can offer significant cost advantages in capital construction projects, but there are important questions to consider before pursuing pre-owned equipment Many misconceptions persist in the marketplace about secondhand equipment.…
The insights reported here will help guide and encourage engineers in facilitating high-quality and effective hazard analyses in their facilities Undertaking and completing a well-planned hazard review might just be the best thing you ever do on a single day…