Altivia Oxide Chemicals, LLC, an affiliate of ALTIVIA Petrochemicals (Houston; www.altivia.com), today announced that it has acquired KMCO (Crosby, Tex.; www.kmcollc.com) and its associated chemical ethoxylation manufacturing assets in Crosby, Texas. The facilities, located on 160 acres near Houston, include…
Rare noble gases neon, krypton and xenon have unique properties and can be obtained from air, but the economics of isolating them at air-separation units depends on demand and pricing. This article provides information on their production and use The…
Removal of dissolved ions from industrial process water, boiler feedwater or wastewater is a common challenge for facilities in the chemical process industries (CPI). Ion exchange (IX) systems offer one possible solution for demineralization, purification or wastewater-treatment applications. Ion exchange…
This column is based on “Orthophthalic Unsaturated Polyester Production Process – Cost Analysis,” a report published by Intratec. It can be found at: www.intratec.us/analysis/unsaturated-polyester-resin-production-cost. Unsaturated polyester resins (UPRs) are solutions of unsaturated polyesters in co-polymerizable monomers, which undergo cross-linkage to…
Controlling flow in gas-handling applications can present challenges because of the fluids’ compressibility. This article presents an overview of how compressible gases behave in response to interacting variables Gas-handling operations are common in almost every sector of the chemical process…
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB) a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.), fell 5.4 percent in May on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis following a 5.4 percent decline in April. On a year-over-year…
According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.), the U.S. Chemical Production Regional Index (U.S. CPRI) tumbled 3.1 percent in April following a 1.0 percent decline in March and a 0.4 percent decline in February. During April, chemical output…
The American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.) reported that U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes fell 11.3 percent in April, accelerating from a 4.0 percent decline in March and a 0.5 percent decline in February. Of the 28 specialty chemicals segments…
Chemetry Corp. (Moss Landing, Calif.; www.chemetrycorp.com) is piloting a hybrid electrochemical-catalysis process for making propylene oxide (PO) that eliminates some of the major production hurdles associated with chlorohydrin-based PO production. “The traditional chlorohydrin process produces about 47 tons of wastewater…
A new electrochemical process could make triphenylphosphine (TPP) — an important reagent in many organic transformations — more practical for industrial use. Synthesizing TPP results in large volumes of waste in the form of triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO), which is very…