A couple of years ago on Chemical Engineering’s 120th anniversary, I looked back at the history of this publication and at that time, I wrote: “In September of 1902, the first issue of Electrochemical Industry was published to serve those…
Sustainable SMR In the pursuit of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen has gained much attention as a potentially “clean” energy source. Typically, hydrogen is produced by steam methane reforming (SMR), a process which itself produces greenhouse gases. Efforts to lower…
Conventional combustors that employ air-blast and pressure-swirl injection technologies are very sensitive to fuel properties, especially viscosity, limiting their ability to utilize certain classes of fuels and blends, including bio-based fuels. The new swirl-burst (SB) fuel-injector technology developed at Baylor…
A new demonstration plant is upcycling gypsum (calcium sulfate) — a material that is typically challenging to dispose of — at a metal-refining site using a process that combines salt-splitting electrolysis, caustic direct-air capture (DAC) and mineralization. Travertine Technologies, Inc.…
Conceptual capital-cost estimates are important for assessing the economic viability of proposed projects, but their usefulness depends on understanding how to appropriately apply the estimates Capital cost estimates are a crucial step in order to make prudent decisions regarding any…
Plant Watch Evonik breaks ground on specialty-amine production plant in Nanjing November 11, 2024 — Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) has broken ground on its plant expansion for specialty amines in Nanjing, China. The Nanjing plant specializes in producing…
The insights reported here will help guide and encourage engineers in facilitating high-quality and effective hazard analyses in their facilities Undertaking and completing a well-planned hazard review might just be the best thing you ever do on a single day…
This packaging film is water soluble EcoSol® is a PVOH (polyvinyl alcohol) film (photo) that dissolves in water in minutes. It can be made into bags, pouches and sachets of many different sizes to create an efficient delivery system for…
Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers This conversation started in a course I was presenting in Sydney, Australia. I was about 15 minutes into my presentation when a delegate from a major petroleum refinery stopped me. “How…
The demand for “green” methanol as a low-carbon fuel is rising, making it a valuable commodity, as well as a promising avenue for waste-carbon utilization, especially since it can be readily produced from “stranded” carbon sources, such as flare gas.…