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Chemical Engineering

Fluor and Hatch awarded joint EPC contract for BHP mining project in South Australia

Fluor Corp. (Irving, Tex.) announced that its Mining & Metals business was awarded a joint venture contract with Hatch to perform engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) for BHP’s proposed Olympic Dam Smelter & Refinery Expansion Project in South Australia,…

Sumitomo Chemical acquires full ownership of two agricultural subsidiaries in Europe

Sumitomo Chemical Co. (Tokyo, Japan) has acquired all shares of Philagro Holding, S.A. (Philagro), its France-based consolidated subsidiary engaged in sales of crop protection products. In addition, Sumitomo Chemical is to acquire all shares of another of its consolidated subsidiary,…

Stamicarbon awarded contract to upgrade urea plant in China

MAIRE S.p.A. (Milan) announced that NEXTCHEM, through its subsidiary Stamicarbon, the nitrogen fertilizer technology licensor, has been selected to provide the Process Design Package to upgrade the Hulunbeier New Gold Chemical Co., Ltd.’s urea plant in Hulunbuir (China), leveraging on…

AI’s potential in the CPI

One of the aspects of my job that I really enjoy is keeping in touch with new and advanced technologies emerging from the chemical process industries (CPI) — an interest that traces back to my roots as an R&D engineer.…

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Gas-Flow Calculations for Sonic Choking: Revisited

Gas compressibility can lead to choked flow in piping systems. Presented here is an overview of choked-flow geometries in pipes, and examples of how choked flow arises in different pipe layouts The more things change, the more they stay the…

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New sustainable materials from recycled carbon nanotubes

Recycling materials, such as plastics and metals, is an attractive, but challenging path toward sustainable material manufacture. Now, researchers have made a discovery that may have far-reaching implications in material manufacture by positioning carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers as a sustainable…

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Carbon-neutral calcium carbonate process uses emissions from steel-making plant

Construction is imminent for a carbon-capture project aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from steel production while producing carbon-neutral calcium carbonate. At the U.S. Steel (Pittsburgh, Pa.; www.ussteel.com) manufacturing facility in Gary, Ind., a carbon-capture system designed by CarbonFree (San Antonio,…

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Creating ultrathin gold films with the largest continuous area

Thin gold films offer a broad range of benefits for electronics due to their high electrical conductivity and transparency. Current manufacturing methods are unable to achieve gold films thinner than 10 nm, and are also limited in the area and…

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Flow chemistry yields a more sustainable route to isocyanates

The wide range of performance properties of polyurethane foams makes them essential in many consumer goods. Thus, there is much effort going into creating a more environmentally friendly production process for polyurethane’s main building blocks, polyols and isocyanates. While much…

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Pilot project planned for thermocatalytic ethanol-to-butene process

In December 2024, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL; Richland, Wash.; www.pnnl.gov) announced a three-year collaborative project with vehicle-tire manufacturer Bridgestone (Tokyo, Japan; www.bridgestone.com) to scale up a thermocatalytic process for converting renewably derived ethanol to n-butene. Conventionally, n-butene is…