During the first half of this decade, painting a rosy salary picture for chemical engineers has been impossible at times, and at best required a creative flair. Forget gaining ground — amid salary freezes or raises that lagged…
Anyone who has ever attended the Achema exhibition-congress, which showcases products and know-how for chemical engineering, environmental protection and biotechnology in Frankfurt, Germany, every three years, is aware from personal experience of the vast scope and high stature of…
During career coaching to hundreds of individuals, I’ve come to realize that the people who take longest to find meaningful employment tend to commit the same blunders. Singled out here are ten of the most egregious career-stalling maneuvers. If you…
Nippoh Chemicals Co. (Tokyo; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5830-539), is developing a continuous, vapor-phase process to produce hydroiodic acid as an alternative to the conventional liquid-phase batch process. Over the next few months, the company will test the new process in a 30-m.t./yr pilot…
Although many new biodiesel plants are sprouting up around the world, Perstorp Oxo AB’s (Stenungsund Sweden) 160,000 m.t./yr rapeseed-methyl-esters (RME) facility, now under construction at Stenungsund, will be the first to have a reactor made from duplex stainless steel. The…
Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS; Leverkusen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5830-546) has developed a new process for producing toluene diisocyanate (TDI), a precursor for making flexible polyurethane foam. Without disclosing details, BMS says the process reduces investment costs by 20–30%, and energy consumption by…
ATMI Life Sciences (ATMI; Hoegaarden, Belgium; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5830-549) and Pierre Guérin SAS (Mauze sur le Mignon, France; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5830-550) have formed an alliance to design, manufacture and market disposable fermentors and bioreactors. ATMI’s proprietary mixing system (which features a paddle integrated into…
Intelligent — and thorough — preparation of a process-design-basis document can make the difference between a high-quality design for a chemical-process project and a poor one. The process-design-basis document represents the owner’s instructions to the design engineering organization…
1st International Congress on Ceramics. The American Ceramic Society (Westerville, Ohio). Phone: 614-890-4700; Fax: 614-899-6109; Web: ceramic.org Toronto, Canada June 25–29  Principles of Process Safety Technology. ABS Consulting (Knoxville, Tenn.). Phone: 865-675-2580; Fax: 865-671-5851; Web: absconsulting.com Knoxville, Tenn. June…
OAPEC/IFP Joint Seminar: The Importance of Conversion Processes in Oil Refining and Their Role in the Production of Clean Fuels. IFP (Rueil-Malmaison, France). Phone: +33-147-526000; Fax: +33-147-527000; Web: ifp.fr Rueil-Malmaison, France June 20–22 16th European Symposium on Computer…