Latest News
PPG to divest selected business activities in Africa
PPG (Pittsburgh, Pa.) announced that it has agreed to divest certain business activities in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Gabon and Algeria to Océinde, an industrial group based in Réunion, France. Océinde will continue to offer the existing range of products,…
Sasol Chemicals and Holiferm enter partnership to develop new biosurfactants
Sasol Chemicals, a business unit of Sasol Ltd. (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Holiferm Limited announced a partnership to jointly develop new biosurfactants and enable the broad commercialization of sophorolipids. Sasol Chemicals has agreed to purchase the majority of sophorolipids produced…
Veolia and Waga Energy commission one of the largest biomethane production units in Europe
Veolia (Paris) and Waga Energy have announced the commissioning of France’s largest biomethane production unit using biogas from a non-hazardous waste storage facility. Located on the largest biogas production site in France, Veolia’s industrial ecology hub in Claye-Souilly (Paris region),…
Neste completes sale of base oils business to Chevron
In October 2021, Neste Corp. (Espoo, Finland) announced that it had signed an agreement to sell its existing base oils business to Chevron Global Energy Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron Corp. (San Ramon, Calif.). The transaction includes the…
Alfa Laval to acquire edible oil and biofuel processing specialist Desmet
Alfa Laval AB (Lund, Sweden) has signed an agreement to acquire Desmet, part of the Desmet Ballestra Group, a world leader in engineering and supplying processing plants and technologies for edible oils and biofuel sectors. The acquisition will strengthen Alfa…
Milliken expanding capacity at Zebra-chem facility in Germany
Milliken & Co. (Spartanburg, S.C.) announced that it is expanding the facilities and capacity it acquired last March via its purchase of Germany’s Zebra-chem GmbH. Zebra-chem is a specialty compounder and chemicals company that makes additive and blowing agent concentrates for polyolefins,…
MOL Group acquires plastics recycling company ReMat
MOL Group (Budapest, Hungary; www.molgroup.info) acquired ReMat Zrt., a recycler with production plants located in Tiszaújváros and Rakamaz, Hungary, and a logistics hub in Bratislava, Slovakia. ReMat is a market leading plastics recycler in Hungary with an annual processing capacity…
Facts At Your Fingertips: Predictive Maintenance Methods
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…
High-purity pressure gage with reed switch
The 50-mm HPS high-purity pressure gage with reed switch (photo) is ultrasonically cleaned to provide exceptional quality and reliability in ultra-high-purity gas delivery systems. The reed-switch capability provides an additional safety feature through actuating an internal switch that triggers an…
Gas Trapping Can Unsettle Distillation Columns
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…