Processing & Handling
Centrifugal Pump Maintenance
Optimal functioning of centrifugal pumps over time depends on sound maintenance practices. The following material represents tips and guidelines for routine preventive and protective maintenance for centrifugal pumps. Monitoring A basic maintenance routine for centrifugal pumps should include monitoring of…
Tight-oil Tightrope for U.S. Refiners
North American production of crude oil, driven by a rapid increase in output of “tight oil” from U.S. shale deposits like Bakken and Eagle Ford, is surging. In many, but not all areas, petroleum refiners are incorporating an increasing amount…
Integrally Geared Compressors in the CPI
In an integrally geared centrifugal compressor (Figure 1), several impellers are mounted on the ends of high-speed pinion shafts, which are rotated by a bull-gear. Each impeller’s casing is mounted directly on the horizontally split gear casing. As is the…
A solid chelating ligand for making heterogeneous catalysts
Shinji Inagaki and colleagues at Toyota Central R&D Labs, Inc. (Nagakute City, Japan; www.tytlabs.com) have synthesized an entirely new immobilization support that can be used to recycle and reuse metalo-organic-complex catalysts, which are widely used for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals…
CO2-utilizing electrocatalytic reaction cell demonstrated
Production of monoethylene glycol (MEG) from waste carbon dioxide has been validated in a demonstration-scale reaction cell developed by Liquid Light Corp. (Monmouth Junction, N.J.; www.llchemical.com). The company says the catalytic-electrochemistry-technology platform used to make MEG can also produce a…
An inorganic paper for preserving information and other applications
A new kind of highly flexible and non-flammable inorganic paper that can be used for the permanent and safe storage of information has been developed by a team led by professor Ying-Jie Zhu, from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese…
An organic waste-to-biogas system to be scaled up in first installation
Construction will soon begin at a site in Korea on an anaerobic digester technology that converts organic waste and biomass to methane at high conversion rates, while also producing a fertilizer stream. Technology developer Bioconversions Solutions LLC (Exton, Pa.; www.bioconversionssolutions.com)…
Mastering the Challenges of Air-Sensitive Materials
While air-sensitive materials may not be a part of every chemical process, certain catalysts, OLED (organic light-emitting diode) applications, inert gas welding, lithium-ion battery applications and other chemical processes do, indeed, require the inclusion of air-sensitive materials. And, when such…
New ceramic membranes for oxygen separation
Researchers from Curtin University’s Fuels and Energy Technology Institute (Perth, Western Australia; www.curtin.edu.au), led by professors Gordon Parkinson and Chun-Zhu Li, have won the Mitsubishi Corp. Western Australia Innovator of the Year award for creating a new membrane that speeds…
More than beer is brewing
This year, the recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal is Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon Ltd. (Bangalore, India; www.biocon.com). The award, which will be presented at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF; Philadelphia, Pa.; www.chemheritage.org) in May, honors…