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Cabot opens fumed-silica manufacturing plant in Inner Mongolia
Cabot Corp. (Boston, Mass;. www.cabot-corp.com) announced the grand opening of its newest fumed-silica manufacturing facility, located in Wuhai, Inner Mongolia, China. The state-of-the-art manufacturing site adds approximately 8,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of fumed-silica capacity to Cabot’s global network…
Umicore and LG Chem enter supply agreement for battery cathode materials
Umicore N.V. (Brussels, Belgium; www.umicore.com) and LG Chem have concluded a multi-year strategic supply agreement for NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) cathode materials to serve LG Chem’s needs out of Umicore plants in Poland, Korea and China. The supply agreement takes…
LyondellBasell expands PP compounding capacity in Germany
LyondellBasell (Rotterdam, the Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com) announced the startup of its fifth production line at its Knapsack, Germany site, making Knapsack the world’s largest polypropylene (PP) compounding facility. The new total annual production capacity for the site is more than 200,000…
Emerson adds Digital Transformation Business
Global engineering and technology company Emerson (St. Louis, Mo.; www.emerson.com) announced yesterday that it has established a dedicated organization focused on digital transformation technologies and programs. The new Digital Transformation business – announced at the annual Emerson Global Users Exchange…
Artificial Intelligence Initiative established at Oak Ridge National Laboratory
To accelerate promising artificial intelligence (AI) applications in diverse research fields, the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) has established a labwide AI Initiative, and its success will help to ensure U.S. economic…
Chemical Activity Barometer rises in Sept., ACC says
The Chemical Activity Barometer, a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com), was up 0.1 percent in September on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis following a 0.1 percent decline in August and gains…
U.S. specialty chemicals markets rebounded in August, ACC says
Reflecting a rebound of manufacturing production, U.S. specialty chemicals market volumes rose 0.2 percent in August after falling 0.1 percent in July, rising 0.2 percent in June and a generally weak early 2019, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC;…
Air Liquide to supply industrial gases for methanol plant expansion in Louisiana
Air Liquide (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com) announces an agreement with Methanex Corp. (Vancouver, B.C.; www.methanex.com) to supply oxygen, nitrogen and utilities to its upcoming methanol plant expansion project in Geismar, La. To serve Methanex and its other customers in the industrial…
Desalination and industrial wastewater treatment among the focuses for partnership
The National Alliance for Water Innovation (www.nawihub.org), a partnership of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab; Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL; Golden, Colo.;…
BASF to sell its ultrafiltration-membrane business to DuPont
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) and DuPont Safety & Construction (DuPont; Wilmington, Del.; www.dupont.com) today announced that the companies have signed an agreement where BASF will sell its ultrafiltration-membrane business to DuPont. The divesture includes the shares of inge GmbH,…