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Facts At Your Fingertips

Facts At Your Fingertips: Milling for Particle Size Control

Milling is commonly used for particle-size reduction and control of particle-size distribution (PSD) for crystalline solids. Mills are effective for generating consistent solids properties, through size reduction and surface-modification mechanisms [1]. This one-page reference outlines the mechanical forces involved in…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Industrial Electrolysis

Industrial electrolysis involves passing a direct electric current through an electrolyte to elicit a range of chemical reactions. Electrolyzers are key pieces of technology for producing many important industrial chemicals. This one-page reference reviews the basic general operation of an…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Efficiency in Electric Induction Motors

The purchase price of an electric motor is generally thought to end up as a small fraction (2–3%) of the motor’s total lifetime cost, with the majority of costs resulting from the electricity used by the motor. This makes motor…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Understanding Energy Efficiency in a Fired Heater

Process heating systems are critical parts of chemical process industries (CPI) facilities. Unfortunately, the reliable, efficient operation of utility systems is often taken for granted, and they receive little engineering attention. This is perhaps understandable, since these systems play a…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Hydrogen Production Methods and End-use Markets

Current hydrogen demand is dominated by petroleum refining and fertilizer production, and is supplied largely by fossil-fuel-based steam-methane reforming (SMR). Increasingly, however, demand for hydrogen will come from the energy transition, and will be supplied by a more diverse range…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Cooling Tower Basics

Most modern chemical processes require some means of rejecting heat for maintaining process efficiency, product quality and plant safety. Examples of heat rejection include cooling crystallization liquid, cooling reactor effluent, condensing material from a distillation column and cooling steps in…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Representing Particle Size and Geometry

Particle size and shape, as well as particle size distribution (PSD) are key determinants of bulk solids behavior [1–4]. A particle can be defined as a single unit of material having discrete physical boundaries that define its size. Particle science…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Continuous Tubular Reactors with Static Mixing Elements

Batch manufacturing methods are common throughout the chemical process industries (CPI) for specialized compounds and reactions. However, typical batch-wise manufacturing processes are often time-consuming due to large volumes and long loading and unloading times added to the batch processing time,…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: NOx Formation in Combustion

Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are a family of highly reactive gases that can be produced naturally, but largely result from fuel combustion (industrial combustion and automobile engines). In the environment, they are pollutants that react with volatile organic compounds in…

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Facts At Your Fingertips: Overview of Reactor Types

Reactors are at the core of most processes in the chemical process industries (CPI) and are broken down most broadly by whether their operating mode is non-flow (batch) or continuous. Each reactor type has advantages and disadvantages depending on the…