Chemical Engineering
BASF sells Food and Health Performance Ingredients business
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) has signed a binding agreement to sell its Food and Health Performance Ingredients business, including the production site in Illertissen, Germany, to Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), a leading global merchant and processor of agricultural goods including…
Mitsubishi Chemical Group targets EV batteries, semiconductors with pair of expansion projects
The Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG; Tokyo) has announced two capacity expansions at its production sites in Japan in response to growing demand for semiconductor materials and lithium-ion batteries. In the first project, MCG will increase its production capacity of a…
Messer Group starts up “green” CO2 plant
Messer Group GmbH (Bad Soden, Germany) has begun operations at a new plant producing green CO2 at its Vrdy site in the Czech Republic. This enables Messer to increase the supply reliability of its customers, for example in the local…
Electrically powered heat pumps and vacuum pumps simplify CO2-capture retrofits
Meeting climate-change goals requires steep reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants and hard-to-abate industry operations. However, the energy required to release captured CO2 from sorbent material is a challenge for the economic viability of these efforts. Also, retrofitting…
Single-atom catalysis reduces water-splitting costs
One of the main limiting factors in the production of “green” hydrogen via electrochemical water splitting is the relatively slow rate of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the use of very expensive noble metals like iridium to catalyze the…
Troubleshooting a Trayed Distillation Column
Presented here is the progress and resolution of a troubleshooting case involving a distillation column with a capacity reduction problem Troubleshooting distillation columns during operation is often the key to stable production at industrial facilities. The collection of troubleshooting references…
Safeguarding the Hydrogen Economy: A Focus on Leak Detection and Mitigation
The use of fixed gas detectors can play a crucial role in mitigating the environmental impact of hydrogen leakage and help protect workers in the hydrogen value chain Governments, industry sectors and companies seeking sustainable energy sources to reduce greenhouse…
Business News [January 2025]
Plant Watch Chevron upgrades Pasadena refinery to increase capacity and flexibility December 11, 2024 — Chevron Corp. (Houston; www.chevron.com) has completed a retrofit of its petroleum refinery in Pasadena, Texas, which is expected to increase product flexibility and expand the…
Entrainment Flooding and Weeping Velocities
Weeping and flooding phenomena set the vapor velocity in industrial distillation columns. Presented here are procedures for calculating flooding and weeping velocities in a four-pass sieve-tray column In industrial distillation, the term “weeping” is primarily used when the liquid in…
Weighing in on Accuracy: Recent Developments in Weighing Equipment
Innovation, intelligence and automation increase precision in weighing equipment for chemical processors Accurate weighing and dosing are critical to the success of any chemical process, because they ensure product quality, safety and resource optimization. Fortunately, innovative technologies, intelligence and automation…