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Environment, Health, Safety & Security

Chementator: CO2-capture pilot test    

CSIRO (Melbourne, Australia; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7371-547) and China’s Thermal Power Research Institute (Xi’an) plan to install a pilot plant at the Huaneng Beijing Co-generation Power Plant that will capture 3,000 m.t./yr of CO2 using an amine-based process. Click here for a full…

Editor’s Page: Go green, but be realistic  

As spring approaches, the woods around Frankfurt are beginning to get green again. Taking in this annual transformation, it seems like a good time to reflect on how the meaning of the word "green" has changed — through misuse or…

Technology Showcase: Biofuels Face a Carbon Certification Challenge

Investment, production and consumption of biofuels are booming, thanks mainly to American and European governments’ subsidy and promotion. In part this is driven by fear of environmental enemy number one — global warming. The simple, conventional wisdom is that biofuels…

Newsfront: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

  While it may be one of the oldest chemical processes known to mankind, fermentation is getting a high-tech face lift as industrial biotech firms put a fresh spin on the age-old technology in an effort to develop advanced products…

Environmental Manager: A Checklist for Safer Chemical Batch Reactions

A good understanding of the reaction chemistry is needed for a safe process design It is a fact that safety-related incidents do occur in the chemical process industries (CPI). These incidents have, in part, led to increased attention to reactive-chemical…

Chementator: An ammonia-based CO2-capture process moves several steps closer to commercialization  

Last month, the first pilot project that used chilled ammonia to capture carbon dioxide from the fluegas (FG) of a coal-fired power plant started operating at the 1,210-MW We Energies’ Pleasant Prairie power plant in Wisconsin. Alstom (Windsor, Conn.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7371-531)…

Chementator: Halogenated activated carbon reduces mercury emissions from a coal-fired plant  

In its first full-scale test on a coal-fired power plant, halogenated activated carbon (AC) made by ADA-ES, Inc. (Littleton, Colo.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7371-537) has reduced mercury emissions by more than 90%. The significance of the results is that the plant burns western…

Chementator: A platinum-free catalytic converter    

Nippon Steel Materials Co., Ltd. (NSM; Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/7371-538) has developed a new catalyst for combustion engines that contains 70% less precious metals than conventional catalytic converters. The catalyst is expected to not only lead to lower costs, but also…

Editor’s Page: Are we taking safety seriously?

Negative opinions regarding the adequacy of contemporary process-plant safety certainly exist in the public, governmental and private sectors. Any way you look at it, a harsh truth for the chemical engineering profession is that for every thousand or so thankfully…

Letters: Packing fires and permanganate

July, Causes and Prevention of Packing Fires, p. 34. I thought the article was very timely and informative and appreciate being a reference for your paper. However, after reviewing the information provided regarding potassium permanganate (especially Table 1), I must…