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Heat Transfer

Heat Transfer Equipment

    Heat transfer takes place in every plant in the chemical process industries (CPI), and in a significant proportion of individual equipment items. And of the many varieties of heat exchanger, shell-and-tube versions must surely be the most traditional.…

Fuel cell makes electricity from previously vented H2

Forza fuel-cell power module, constructed by Nuvera Fuel Cells, Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6515-542) and installed by Uhdenora S.p.A. (Milan, Italy; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6515-543), has started operating at the chlorate production plant of Caffaro S.r.l. in Brescia, Italy. Integrating the fuel cell into…

Solar cells

BP Solar (Frederick; Md.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6515-547) has developed a new silicon growth process that is said to significantly increase the cell efficiency over traditional multicrystalline-based solar cells. Solar cells made with these so-called Mono2 wafers, together with other BP Solar advances…

Green syngas

Last month, Expander Energy Inc. (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6515-551) licensed the Carbo-V process from Choren Industries GmbH (Freiberg, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6515-552) for the production of synthesis gas derived from biomass. Carbo-V is a three-stage gasification process (CE, August, 2003, p. 16)…

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Chementator: A new reactor is set to change the way chemicals are produced

Alfa Laval AB (Lund, Sweden; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5830-531) has developed a new reactor system, called Alfa Laval Plate Reactors (trademarked as ART), which combines the high-heat-transfer capabilities of plate heat exchangers with the efficient mixing and reaction control typical of microreactors into…

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Chementator: Waste-to-oil

Last month, Clyvia Technology GmbH (Wegberg, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5830-548), a fully owned subsidiary of Clyvia Inc. (Las Vegas, Nev.), was granted a German patent for its proprietary fractional depolymerization process for converting waste material into heating oil and diesel fuel. The…

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Chementator: A new process to recycle metal oxide and mineral residues

The Linz, Austria-based VAI Division of Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (Erlangen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5829-535) is commercializing a smelt-reduction process for recycling metal oxide wastes. The ZEWA (zero waste) process, developed by a consortium of companies in a research project under…

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Chementator: Jet fuel

Researchers at Penn State University’s (University Park, Pa.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5829-551) Energy Institute are developing a jet fuel that is composed of at least 50% bituminous coal. The fuel, provisionally designated JP900, is comparable to Jet A or military JP 8, and…

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Chementator: Europe to get a new wave of plastic-to-diesel plants

Over the next four years, EnvoSmart Technologies B.V. (Roosendaal, Netherlands; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5829-533) plans to install 31 ThermoFuel systems throughout Europe for converting plastic waste into low-sulfur diesel fuel. The first six systems are to be located near Berlin, Germany, where they…

The path to biorefineries

    It’s not a question of whether the world supply of fossil is going to run out; its just a question of when, says professor Colin Webb, head of the chemical engineering department at the University of Manchester (England),…