Chemical Engineering
Business News: May 2024
Plant Watch Celanese expands production capacities for acetic acid and VAE April 9, 2024 — Celanese Corp. (Dallas, Tex.; www.celanese.com) started up a new production unit for vinyl acetate ethylene (VAE) in Nanjing, China and completed several downstream debottlenecking projects…
Evolving Demand and Feed Profiles Challenge Refiners
Trends related to the energy transition are shifting global demand for refined products and affecting feedstock slates, forcing petroleum refiners to embrace adaptation and flexibility Demand for fossil fuels has remained strong in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic, but…
Industrial Robots Forge Ahead
Performance improvements in robotics technologies for manufacturing and energy operations are leading to greater productivity, cost savings and safety improvements In the chemical process industries (CPI), mobile robots, often in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), are…
Facts At Your Fingertips: Representing Particle Size and Geometry
Particle size and shape, as well as particle size distribution (PSD) are key determinants of bulk solids behavior [1–4]. A particle can be defined as a single unit of material having discrete physical boundaries that define its size. Particle science…
Design Considerations for Steam-Heated Storage Tanks
Steam-heated storage tanks are critical to manufacturing processes, and prioritizing reliability in tank-system design and operations can mitigate unwanted issues Storage tanks are essential to the chemical process industries (CPI), and they require significant capital investment to ensure optimal installation…
A Holistic Approach to Asset Risk Management: Is it All or Nothing?
By combining mechanical integrity and reliability programs into a single framework, plants can streamline their asset maintenance strategies and mitigate all types of risk Asset maintenance first hit the headlines during the late 1980s when it became a target for…
Syensqo to open North America’s largest PVDF production plant to serve energy-storage applications
Syensqo broke ground on its future battery-grade polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) facility in Augusta, Georgia. They were joined by Tom Perez, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and by Giulia Siccardo, Director…
Linde increases production capacity for industrial gases in Florida
Linde plc (Guildford, U.K.) announced that it has increased the capacity of its production facility in Mims, Florida, in response to growing demand for industrial gases in the region. Linde has expanded production capacity at Mims by 50%, following a…
SK Geo Centric announces development of new lactic-acid production technology
SK Geo Centric has secured a new technology for producing “lactic acid,” the raw material for bio-based plastic PLA (Polylactic Acid), using a sustainable method that minimizes costs and chemical byproducts. The research team from SK Innovation’s Institute of Environmental…
Sika opens synthetic fibers production facility in Peru
Sika AG (Baar, Switzerland) is opening a state-of-the-art facility in Lima, Peru, to produce synthetic macro fibers, and expanding the rollout of a product range with great growth potential in Latin America. With this innovative technology, Sika is further strengthening…