Plant layout is as important a part of process plant design as it ever was, but it is rarely taught as part of chemical engineering courses While process plant layout is a critical aspect of chemical process industries (CPI) operations,…
Early in 2016, OSHA (the Occupational Health and Safety Administration) announced its “final rule” regarding respirable crystalline silica. This rule has been under consideration since 2013. The final ruling reduces the permissible exposure limit (or PEL) for workers in businesses…
Many important research and industrial processes require vacuum in what is referred to as the "fine vacuum" range, which is between 0.1 and 0.001 Torr. In a prior post, we talked about the fact that the Pirani style gauge is…
We've previously talked about some of the tools we've made available to help select the right vacuum pump for your work. Our pump selection guide is a great choice if you have a strong sense of your operating parameters. And for drying…
Our most recent post addressed the benefits of proportional-only vacuum process control. Though this approach is well suited to many processes, in some cases more accurate (or precise) control of the pressure level is necessary. Under such circumstances, employing PI…
We are officially settled into our new headquarters building located at 2009 Renaissance Boulevard, King of Prussia, PA. We briefly touched on the move in our end of year blog posted Dec. 30th and are excited to report…
In our prior post, we talked about using variants of the classic PID algorithm in order to control vacuum processes. In the simplest form, the PID control loop can be reduced to a P-only, or 2-point, algorithm. For example, by…
Testing and characterization techniques are rising to meet the demands of increasingly complex materials and applications Ensuring the integrity of materials is essential in the chemical process industries (CPI) for the continued maintenance of long-lifetime process equipment like vessels and…
This column is based on a report published by Intratec titled “Carbon Fiber Production from Pitch — Cost Analysis.” The report can be found at: www.intratec.us/analysis/carbon-fiber-production-cost. Carbon fibers (CF) are defined as fibers containing at least 90% carbon by weight,…
Establishing good control over vacuum processes has numerous benefits, such as helping to improve process yields, achieve more repeatable results, and reduce process times. And there are several options for controlling vacuum processes to achieve these various benefits. This post…