Chemical Engineering
Evonik to expand production capacity of methylmercapto-propionaldehyde
Evonik Industries (Essen, Germany) has invested €25 million developing and expanding its methylmercapto-propionaldehyde (MMP) production plant in Wesseling, Germany, in the latest move to strengthen its world-scale global methionine production network. MMP is integral in the production of MetAMINO (DL-methionine)…
Blue-White Industries appoints new executives
The Board of Directors of Blue-White Industries (Huntington Beach, Calif.) elected two new officers in their 2023 First Quarter Meeting. The Board voted Unanimously to appoint Bill McDowell to the position of Chief Operating Officer, and Patrick Murphy as Vice…
Safety Aspects in the Instrumentation of Process Plants
Safety is often underestimated when planning, operating and maintaining process-measuring equipment. Sensors with SIL certification, alone, do not make the process safe. It is important to avoid systematic errors during planning, installation and operation The correct installation of a temperature…
Chementator briefs
Magnet Metals Bilfinger SE (Mannheim, Germany; www.bilfinger.com) is supporting REEtec AS (Oslo, Norway; www.reetec.no) with engineering, procurement, construction and management (EPCM) services for a new processing plant for neodymium and praseodymium — two rare earth elements (REE) used in the…
Design for Safety: Tips for Proactive Risk Reduction
Thoughtful design can help reduce safety risks at process plant sites by proactively eliminating possible hazards and modifying personnel behaviors Safety is an important value in any organization, but is particularly important in the chemical process industries (CPI) when the…
Scaleup for an ethanol-to-ethylene process
Last May, Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net) started up the first ethanol-to-ethylene pilot plant based on Axen’s Atol technology with Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp). The pilot plant, located at Sumitomo Chemical’s Chiba Works, will produce ethylene from ethanol.…
Wireless Data Collection: Stop Chasing Reliability Data
A routes-by-exception reliability strategy helps improve safety and efficiency, while preserving competitive advantage in a changing marketplace In recent years, maintenance and reliability experts have often talked about the massive wave of retirements leaving chemical plants, creating a shortage of…
A more stable way to upcycle waste plastics
A new advanced recycling process simplifies the task of breaking down polymer chains and stabilizing the resulting fragments. The Hydrochemolytic technology (HCT), developed by Aduro Clean Technologies, Inc. (Sarnia, Ont., Canada; www.adurocleantech.com), involves processing waste plastic with water, an inexpensive…
Designing a Multi-Stage Thermal Oxidizer System
Thermal oxidizers can be used for the abatement of a wide range of air pollutants and volatile organic compounds. This article describes the custom design of a thermal oxidizer to treat three different waste streams from a biogas plant A…
Hydrothermal synthesis of cobalt-free lithium-ion-battery cathodes
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) have developed a hydrothermal-synthesis method for high-voltage lithium-ion battery cathodes that avoids several key issues with traditional battery processing. Key…