TechnipFMC (Houston; www.technipfmc.com) has signed a major Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract with Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR) for the modernization and expansion of their existing complex near Alexandria, Egypt. This EPC contract covers the debottlenecking of existing units…
Arkema (Colombes, France; www.arkema.com) is expanding in engineering adhesives with the announcement of the acquisition of Afinitica, a Spanish company specializing in instant adhesives, also known as cyanoacrylates. This small targeted acquisition will enable Arkema’s Bostik brand to develop a…
Lonza Group (Basel, Switzerland; www.lonza.com) and Platinum Equity jointly announced that Platinum Equity has entered into a definitive agreement with Lonza to acquire Lonza's Water Care business and operations for $630 million. The inclusion of the French business in this…
The following recently published books are relevant to the chemical process industries (CPI): Membrane-Based Salinity Gradient Processes for Water Treatment and Power Generation. Edited by Sarper Sarp and Nidal Hilal, Elsevier Press, 2018, 366 pages, $187.00. Bow Ties in Risk…
Honeywell says that Sonatrach S.p.A. will use a suite of Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) technologies to produce 200,000 metric tons per year of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), a high-octane gasoline additive that reduces emissions in automobile exhaust. Honeywell…
Research and development in the brewing industry is peaking, driven by efforts to improve quality, efficiency and sustainability Within the chemical process industries (CPI), the brewing industry is among the sectors with the deepest historical roots and the most entrenched…
The research group of Yabing Qi at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST; Japan; https://groups.oist.jp/emssu), in collaboration with Shengzhong Liu at Shaanxi Normal University, China, has developed a simple method to fabricate thin (1µm) perovskite films that can be…
Mobile applications for the CPI simplify process engineering challenges and enhance plant optimization Most everyone recalls the Apple tagline boasting, “There’s an app for that.” It appears Apple was ahead of its time; today, there really is an application (app)…
Shu Kobayashi and colleagues at the University of Tokyo (Japan; www.chem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp) reported on two new catalysts for synthesizing fine chemicals using their continuous-flow reactor system. The first technology is a novel methodology using CsF.Al2O3 as a highly efficient, environmentally benign,…
Plant Watch Covestro to invest €1.5 billion in new, world-scale MDI plant in Baytown October 9, 2018 — Covestro AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.covestro.com) approved an investment of around €1.5 billion to build a new methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) plant in…