Business & Economics
Cognis opens affiliate in India
Cognis GmbH (Monheim, Germany; www.cognis.com) has opened an affiliate in Mumbai, India. As of today, Cognis India will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Cognis Group, and will operate under the name of Cognis Specialty Chemicals Pvt. Ltd. Cognis first…
Intrinsically safe I/O subsystem
Invensys Process Systems (IPS; Plano, Tex.; www.ips.invensys.com) has teamed with Pepperl+Fuchs Inc. (Twinsburg Ohio; www.am.pepperl-fuchs.com) to offer seamless integration of the Pepperl+Fuchs intrinsically safe I/O interface product lines with IPS' I/A Series distributed control system technology. With built-in barriers and…
Siemens installs 1-MWp PV plant in Italy
Siemens Energy (Erlangen, Germany; www.powergeneration.siemens.com) has built a large ground-based photovoltaic (PV) plant in Italy under contract to Ferrarelle S.p.A, the Italian bottled water company. The turnkey solar power plant, with a peak capacity of 1 megawatt (MWp), was constructed…
HPD wins FEED contract for NaHCO3-production expansion
HPD (Plainfield, Ill.), a Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies company (www.veoliawater.com), has been awarded the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase for Natural Soda’s proposed “State of the Art” expansion at its existing facility near Rifle, Colorado. The design effort from…
Süd-Chemie and Linde piloting biofuels process
Süd-Chemie AG (www.sud-chemie.com) The Linde Group (Both Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) have started up a pilot plant for processing lignocellulosic biomass (straw) into biofuels. The facility — officially opened at Süd-Chemie’s research center in Munich-Obersendling on April 27 — will be…
Therminol heat-transfer fluid selected for new solar thermal power plant in Spain
Solutia Inc. (St. Louis, Mo.;www.solutia.com) will be supplying Therminol synthetic heat transfer fluid to a new 50-MW, solar-thermal power plant in Lebrija, Spain, which will start up in spring 2010. Iberese, a Spanish company dedicated to building and managing plants…
Ceratec & ESK extend business relationship
ESK Ceramics GmbH & Co. KG (Kempten, Germany; www.esk.com) and Ceratec Technical Ceramics BV (Geldermalsen, Netherlands; www.ceratec.nl), have deepened their already 20-year-old, successful business relationship. At the end of 2008, the two partners signed a contract focusing on intensifying joint…
Major capacity expansion for Sarlink TPV
Sarlink (Sittard, Netherlands; www.sarlink.com) has officially opened a new production facility in Genk, Belgium. The new plant will double Sarlink’s global capacity and provide the company with a timely expansion as Thermoplastic Vulcanisate (TPV) material solutions are becoming more popular…
Postscripts, corrections
April 2009, Capital Costs Quickly Calculated, pp. 46 – 52: In three places in the box at the top of p. 47, the factor 0.8 should have been rendered as an exponent and was not [30.8 at the bottom of…
Hazards of Oil Refining Distillation Units — Stanley S. Grossel’s review
Hazards of Oil Refining Distillation Units. By BP International Ltd. (BP Process Safety Series). Institution of Chemical Engineers, Davis Building, Railway Terrace, Rugby CV21 3HQ, U.K. Web: icheme.org. 2008. 81 pages, £27. Reviewed by Stanley S. Grossel, Process Safety &…