Samson AG (Frankfurt, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-545) has started to implement the Vigilant Integration Partners (VIP) initiative, having entered a formal cooperation agreement with Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-546). The VIP initiative is an open and non-exclusive mutual technology cooperation program to…
Last month, UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6519-544) established a new business unit — Renewable Energy and Chemicals — dedicated to introducing new technology for processing renewable energy sources in existing or new petroleum refineries around the world. The new…
Last month, Thai Oleochemicals Company Ltd. (TOL; Bangkok, Thailand) and Thai Fatty Alcohols Company Ltd. signed a contract with Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-531) for the construction of an integrated plant for making 200,000 m.t./yr of methyl ester, 100,000 m.t./yr…
Last month, China’s third largest oil company, CNOOC, and Choren Industries GmbH (Freiberg, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-548) launched a new joint venture — Choren-CNOOC Beijing Gasification Engineering Technology Co. Ltd. (edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-549) — to market technologies for gasifying solid feedstock, such as coal…
Last month, BOC Edwards (Wilmington, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-549) completed installations of its new ERIX wastewaster treatment system at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, of the University of Albany's Albany NanoTech complex (N.Y.). The installation is a development step towards…
Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW; Karlsruhe) and Siemens Power Generation (Erlangen, both Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-550) are joining forces to build a fuel-cell hybrid power plant with 70% efficiency (fuel to electricity) and a megawatt-scale power output. The 70% efficiency of this hybrid…
This month, JFE Steel Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-532) started up a new production plant that produces 100 m.t./yr of solar-grade (SOG) silicon (Si) from crude Si metal. The company also started to design a 500-1,000-m.t./yr plant for making SOG Si,…
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arlington, Va.) has awarded $5.7 million to a two-company consortium to develop an inexpensive and energy-efficient process for making titanium metal powder. Such powders can be used to make strong, lightweight objects, such…
On September 5, Linde AG (Wiesbaden, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-547) and the BOC Group plc. (Windlesham, U.K.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-548) merged to become one of the leading industrial gases and engineering companies. The new company is called The Linde Group (Munich, Germany), but the…
Messer Group GmbH (Krefeld, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-531) has commercialized a liquid-nitrogen- (LNâ‚‚) based process for purifying exhaust air that contains high (100–1,000 g/m3) loads of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or solvents. Unlike incineration (which can have problems, such as dioxin formation, with chlorinated…