The petroleum refining sector in India plays a vital role in the country’s industrial development and provides a major source to meet India’s energy requirements. Today, the refining sector satisfies about 30% of the total energy demand of India […
Chemical processing equipment made from thermoplastics can have distinct advantages for equipment corrosion, fluid contamination and flame retardancy. When purchased in the form of heavy-gauge sheets, these thermoplastics can be machined, fabricated and formed into a virtually unlimited variety of…
The ADPC 302 (photo) is a unique, in-process contamination management system for particle contamination monitoring in the semiconductor industry. The system measures the number of particles in wafer-transport carriers, and its fully automated, patented process localizes and counts particles from…
The new motorized actuation of the 2030 series valve actuator (photo) is composed of an electric stepping motor (400 steps per revolution), a flexible coupling, a gear box and stroke detector. Every part of the gear box is made of…
The A Series eccentric-disc pump (photo) incorporates a variety of upgrades, including the implementation of ISO PN 16/ANSI 150 flanges. The A Series has also doubled its maximum differential pressure from 5 bars (72 psi) to 10 bars (145 psi),…
The scaleup of liquid mixing systems does not have to be a mystery. The principles are quite well understood, although knowing which principles apply is not always obvious. Follow this guidance to improve operation. 1. Liquid mixing scaleup. Liquid mixing…
Sapphire Energy, Inc. (San Diego, Calif.; www.sapphireenergy.com) and The Linde Group (Munich; www.linde.com) have signed an agreement, with a minimum span of five years, to commercialize Sapphire’s process for producing crude oil from algae. The agreement expands an existing partnership…
A process that is expected to produce high-octane gasoline from non-food biomass for an average cost of $1.50/gal, depending on feed costs, will be commercialized by Cool Planet Energy Systems (Denver, Colo.; www.coolplanet.com). The company has tested the process in…
Last month, Southwest Research Institute (SWRI; San Antonio, Tex.; www.swri.org) was awarded $1.5 million by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA; Arlington, Va.; www.darpa.mil) for a three-year project to develop alternative technologies for depositing thin films. The project is…
A typical fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCC) generates about 200 tons/d of dry gas — a mixture of off-gases that is burned as refinery fuel. However, about 40 tons of that gas is ethylene, which would have much greater value…