Latest News
Cabot completes sale of specialty fluids business
Cabot Corporation (Boston, Mass.; www.cabotcorp.com) announced that the company has successfully closed the previously announced transaction to divest its specialty fluids business to Sinomine (Hong Kong) Rare Metals Resources Co. Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinomine Resource Group…
Celanese initiates shutdown of acetate manufacturing facility in Mexico
Celanese Corporation (Dallas, Tex.; www.celanese.com), a global chemical and specialty materials company, today announces a further consolidation of its global acetate manufacturing operations by initiating the shutdown of its manufacturing facility in Ocotlán, Jalisco, Mexico. The consolidation is designed…
Berry Global Group Acquires RPC Group to expand plastic packaging reach
Berry Global Group, Inc. (Evansville, Ind.; www.berryglobal.com), today announced the completion of its acquisition of RPC Group Plc (RPC) for a purchase price of approximately $6.5 billion, which includes approximately $4.3 billion of cash paid for the equity interest in…
KBR awarded phenol and acetone technology contract by Qingdao Haiwan Chemical
KBR, Inc. (Houston; www.kbr.com) has been awarded a contract by Qingdao Haiwan Chemical Co., Ltd. (Haiwan Chemical) to license KBR's leading phenol and acetone technology for a new phenol and acetone plant in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China. Under the…
Recently Published Books for the CPI: July 2019
The following list is a selection of recently published books with relevance for the chemical process industries (CPI), July 2019 Guidelines for Investigating Process Safety Incidents, 3rd ed. By the Center for Chemical Process Safety, Wiley/AIChE Publishing, 2019, 408 pages,…
2019 Nicholas Chopey Scholarship
Chemical Engineering established the annual Chopey Scholarship for Chemical Engineering Excellence in late 2007 to bring recognition to the chemical engineering profession and to help advance that profession. The award is named after Nicholas P. Chopey, the magazine’s former Editor-in-Chief…
Thyssenkrupp introduces artificial intelligence ‘alfred’
Thyssenkrupp Materials Services GmbH (Essen, Germany; www.thyssenkrupp-materials-services.com) continues to drive digital transformation: since early 2019, an artificial intelligence (AI) solution, supported by Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure, has been integrated into the processes of the largest materials distribution and service provider…
Removing PFAS from wastewater
A new low-cost, safe and environmentally friendly method for removing polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) from water has been developed by researchers from Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia; www.flinders.edu.au). PFAS are commonly used in non-stick and protective coatings, lubricants and aviation fire-fighting…
Iodine-oxidizing bacteria could leach gold underground
Gold is usually leached from ore using hazardous substances, such as cyanide, mercury, aqua regia and others. Although there has been some progress in developing bioleaching technology, such methods still require mining and processing the ore before micro-organisms can go…
Smart retrosynthesis simplifies reaction design
A new retrosynthesis platform enables users to work backwards from a target molecule to optimize synthesis pathways. MilliporeSigma’s (Burlington, Mass.; www.sigmaaldrich.com) Synthia software uses sophisticated algorithms backed by a database of over 72,000 coded reaction rules to provide precise pathways…