The Board of Directors of SRF Ltd. (Gurgaon, India; www.sfr.com), an intermediate chemicals manufacturer and a leader in refrigerant gases, approved an investment proposal for setting up of a pilot plant to manufacture next generation refrigerant gas, HFO 1234yf. The…
Dr. Robert Gnann (51) has taken over as president of Wacker Silicones effective April 1, 2016. He succeeds Dr. Christian Hartel, who was appointed to the Wacker Group’s (Munich, Germany; www.wacker.com) Executive Board in early November 2015. Gnann comes…
Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM; Chicago, Ill.; www.adm.com) announced today that it has reached an agreement to sell its sugarcane ethanol operations in Limeira do Oeste, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, to JFLim Participações S.A. “We regularly review…
The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC; Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) Global Chemical Production Regional Index (Global CPRI) for February shows that the 1st quarter is “progressing on a good note, with the headline index rising 0.2% on a three-month moving average (3MMA)…
Swiss measurement and automation engineering specialist Endress+Hauser (Reinach, Switzerland; www.us.endress.com) has completed the takeover of German analytical instrumentation provider Analytik Jena (Jena, Germany; www.analtik-jena.de). The remaining minority shares of Analytik Jena were legally transferred to Endress+Hauser on 30 March 2016…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has agreed with the Sweden-based mining and smelting company Boliden on the main design and delivery of proprietary equipment for a sulfuric acid plant to be built in connection with the Harjavalta nickel and…
Fe-free HTS catalyst Last month at the Nitrogen + Syngas 2016 conference (Berlin, Germany; February 29–March 3), Haldor Topsøe A/S (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) introduced SK-501 Flex, a new high-temperature shift (HTS) catalyst with the unique ability to operate at any…
When I was studying for my degrees in chemical engineering, I had the option to take several elective courses. Two that I chose were biochemical engineering and biomedical engineering. During the biomedical engineering course, I was fascinated with the ways…
Plant Watch NET Power breaks ground on clean-power demonstration plant March 10, 2016 — NET Power, LLC (Durham, N.C.; www.netpower.com) has broken ground on a first-of-a-kind 50-MW demonstration power plant in La Porte, Tex. NET Power’s zero-emission Allam Cycle technology burns natural…
Chemical functional groups are critical determinants of the properties and reactivity of compounds. The following provides a review of the structures of common organic functional groups, along with some notes and examples. Alkyne. Acetylene is used as a fuel for…