Properly locating a simple 1–2-in. balance line can make all the difference in successful reboiler operation Steam reboilers are crucial to production in petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants, representing huge capital investment in distillation columns. Regardless of the investment made…
One of the major hindrances in saltwater electrolysis for “green”-hydrogen production is the cost of materials to construct electrolyzer components that can withstand an extremely corrosive saltwater environment. Currently, titanium coated with platinum or gold is usually required for such…
A new plasma-based technology is being touted as a more sustainable method for textile finishing, including water-intensive dyeing and coating processes. The Ausora process, developed by Xefco Pty. Ltd. (Eveleigh, Australia; www.xefco.com), in partnership with the Recycling and Clean Energy…
Metal components made with laser powder-bed fusion — an important additive manufacturing process — must be qualified for use in critical applications, but the qualification relies on expensive non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques. In-process monitoring offers a less expensive alternative, but…
Leather Tanning Trumpler GmbH & Co. KG (Worms, Germany; www.trumpler.com) and Archroma (Pratteln, Switzerland; www.archroma.com) have developed a new leather-production process that can be used to produce high-performance leather in a more eco-friendly and cost-efficient way. The new process, DyTan,…
In recent years, engineers at ETH Zurich have developed technology to produce liquid fuels from sunlight and air. At the heart of the production process is a solar reactor that is exposed to concentrated sunlight delivered by a parabolic mirror…
Substituting nitrogen atoms for aromatic carbon atoms at specific locations within the molecular skeleton of a possible therapeutic agent can have significant effects on molecular properties critical for biological activity, such as hydrogen bonding, polarity, metabolic stability, target specificity and…
A process to produce an alternative to palm oil for food applications, developed by scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore; www.ntu.edu.sg), will be scaled up for commercial production through a partnership with Eves Energy Pte. Ltd. (Singapore; www.eves-energy.com).…
Editor's note: The content in the following column is adapted from the following article: Palluzi, R., Leak Prevention in Small-bore Piping and Tubing, Chem. Eng., October 2020, pp. 22–25. The original article can be found here. Leakage can negatively affect…
With the approval of funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has come a major step closer in building a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer. In…