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Phillips 66 completes refinery hydrotreater conversion for renewable diesel production

As a part of its first-quarter 2021 financial results, Phillips 66 (Houston) provided an update on its conversion project at the San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo, California, to meet the growing demand for renewable fuels. In April, the company completed…

Recently Published Books for the CPI: May 2021

The following recently published books may have relevance to various sectors of the chemical process industries (CPI). Driving Continuous Process Safety Improvement from Investigated Incidents. By the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), Wiley Publishing, 2021, 288 pages, $140.00. Industry…

Monitor bolt loads, even at high temperatures

The new High Temp Maxbolt (photo) is able to operate in temperatures up to 650°F for proven performance in extended high-temperature run times and thermal cycling. High Temp Maxbolt, like the original Maxbolt, helps to reduce downtime, premature wear and…

New additions to IIoT software

A new packaging of Seeq features and packages was launched in March that features and applications as Seeq Team and Seeq Enterprise editions (photo). Both, which run best as SaaS on AWS or Microsoft Azure, represent the culmination of learning…

New Raman spectrometers provide IIoT connectivity

The Kaiser Raman embedded analyzer (photo) collects in-situ process measurements, enabling realtime process monitoring, optimization and control. With this continuous automation, users can maintain a continuous pulse on the safety, quality and efficiency of their operations — whether in laboratory…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Evaporator Equipment Types

Industrial evaporator heat-transfer surfaces are either tubular or flat plates, packaged into a variety of evaporator types, as outlined here. Batch evaporators Batch evaporators are vessels with a heating jacket or internal coil, an overhead condenser, a condensate receiver, and…

Technology Profile: Producing Polylactic Acid from Corn

Polylactic acid (PLA, polylactide; Figure 1) is a thermoplastic aliphatic polyester that is derived from a number of renewable starting materials, such as starch and sugarcane, via bacterial fermentation. PLA is semicrystalline or amorphous, rigid, resilient and an ultraviolet-light-resistant material,…

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Enhancing Plant Safety Via Virtual ‘On-Site’ Visits

New developments in augmented reality can help plant operators fix critical issues while limiting the number of outside visitors entering the facility Reducing risk is an important goal for any plant or petroleum refinery to maintain the health and safety…

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Advanced Analytics for Process Safety

A look at how advanced analytics facilitates and improves process safety efforts within the chemical process industries (CPI) Simply by the nature of some of the chemicals used and the associated complex processes involved, chemical plants can be hazardous. With…

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Keeping Valves Corrosion-Free

In all phases of a valve’s lifecycle — from fabrication to decommissioning and storage — corrosion protection is essential Corrosion can be a serious source of valve damage, and it can often result in costly leakage, failures and repairs or…