The surface engineering company MesoCoat, Inc. (Euclid, Ohio; www.mesocoat.com) recently started up a facility for manufacturing clad pipe for the oil-and-gas industry that uses the company’s proprietary fusion-cladding technology to apply corrosion-resistant alloys to carbon-steel pipes. Because the cladding can…
A company in Hamburg, Germany had been using a 20-m3 mixing silo with internal pipe auger for 20 years. By replacing the pipe auger (photo, left) with an open mixing screw with special segments (photo, right), the company gained a…
One of the current methods for dealing with oil spills is through the use of dispersants. These dispersants, however, break oil into small globules that sink into the water, spreading the oil into a wider area, and they have toxic…
With the newly developed, high-precision 4090 pneumatic volume booster it is possible to amplify the air strength of the set point signal from the positioner to the actuator such that these control valves (depending on the nominal valve size)…
Kinki University (www.kindai.ac.jp) and Naniwa Roki Co. (both Osaka, Japan; www.naniwaroki.co.jp) have developed a continuous process for producing a next-generation solid fuel, called Bio-cokes. The process is being used at a new production facility located at Kinki University Research Institute…
Composite liquid and slurry boiler fuels have been produced from mixtures of various waste materials, such as biomass, coal- and crude-oil-processing residues, wood and other combustible substances, in a collaboration between researchers at the University of Rhode Island (Kingston, R.I.)…
Researchers at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s (DOE) Ames Laboratory (Ames, Iowa; www.ameslab.gov) led by Ryan Ott have developed a process for recovering rare-earth (RE) metals from magnet scraps. The process involves first crushing neodymium-iron-boron magnet scraps and placing the…
For the first time, it has become possible to spin carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into a fiber that looks and acts like textile threads, yet has the electrical conductivity and strength of a metal. The breakthrough, which came after more than…
Determining the proper preliminary size for centrifugal pumps during the initial stages of any pump-specification exercise requires numerous calculations and assumptions. This article reviews the steps needed to size centrifugal pumps during the early stages of a project, to support…
An industrial compressed-air system is expected to supply air of defined quality, required pressure and desired quantity to all the plant air and instrument air consumers. With air being one of the most critical utilities of a chemical plant, a…