Chemical Engineering
Henkel acquires Critica Infrastructure
Henkel AG (Düsseldorf, Germany) has acquired the U.S.-based firm Critica Infrastructure (“Critica”), a specialized supplier of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) composite solutions for the world’s most critical infrastructure such as oil and gas transmission as well as municipal water…
BASF invests in U.S. startup firm 3Helix Inc. to bolster personal-care products
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) and 3Helix Inc., a U.S.-based technology startup, announce their innovation partnership on 3Helix’s proprietary Collagen Hybridizing Peptide (CHP) technology. The partnership involves an equity investment and licensing agreement, granting BASF exclusive rights to commercialize CHP solutions…
Grace expands operating Unipol PP technology capacity in China with Oriental Energy
W.R. Grace & Co (Grace; Columbia, Md.) announced that Oriental Energy Co. Ltd. (Oriental Energy) has started up a new plant with Grace’s UNIPOL PP Process Technology. Located in Maoming, China, the new 400,000-ton/yr reactor line began producing high-quality homopolymers…
Lummus Technology licensing olefins, cumene and phenol technologies to Haldia Petrochemicals
Lummus Technology (Houston) announced Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd. (HPL) will license its olefins conversion technology (OCT) and the Lummus/Versalis cumene and phenol technologies for a new plant in West Bengal, India. Once HPL's plant is complete, it will be India's largest cumene…
Veolia acquires waste-handling and recycling firm in the U.S.
Veolia North America announced that it has completed the acquisition of U.S. Industrial Technologies, a Michigan-based provider of total waste and recycling services that has managed industrial waste streams for automakers as well as other large manufacturers, medium and small…
Dow and Evonik start up hydrogen peroxide to propylene glycol pilot plant
Dow (Midland, Mich.) and Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany) announced the successful start-up and operation of a pioneering hydrogen peroxide to propylene glycol (HPPG) pilot plant at Evonik’s site in Hanau, Germany. Collaboratively developed by Dow, the world’s largest producer…
Closed-loop CO2-based energy-storage system slated for Wisconsin
Alliant Energy (Madison, Wis.; www.alliantenergy.com) was recently selected to receive a $30-million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov/oced) for a proposed 200-MWh energy storage system. Alliant Energy’s new battery system,…
Using waste plastic to simultaneously make graphene and hydrogen
Building off of a process to efficiently manufacture graphene (see Chem. Eng., April 2022, p. 9), a team of researchers from Rice University (Houston, www.rice.edu) have uncovered that the process can be easily altered to also produce a nearly pure…
The first H2-fired low-NOx burner for traveling-grate pelletizing plants
Last month, Metso Corp. (Espoo, Finland; www.mogroup.com) introduced a hydrogen-variant of its Ferroflame LowNOx burners as part of its NextGen Pelletizing plant product range. It is a first-of-its-kind burner to run on H2 and to operate on the LowNOx combustion…
Business News: November 2023
Plant Watch BASF to build a new fermentation plant in Ludwigshafen October 12, 2023 — BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) is investing in a new fermentation plant for biological crop-protection products, such as fungicides, insecticides and seed treatments, at its…