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Chementator Briefs: December 2024

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…

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Upgrading organic wastewater into fuel feedstocks

Although wastewater streams with high organic content — such as those from breweries and dairy facilities — can be difficult to treat and expensive to dispose of, there is potential to valorize their carbon content with the right process. Based…

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New injector technology fundamentally improves combustion flexibility

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…

Cost Engineering with Previously Owned Process Equipment

This article made available to you by: Previously used process equipment can offer significant cost advantages in capital construction projects, but there are important questions to consider before pursuing pre-owned equipment Many misconceptions persist in the marketplace about secondhand equipment.…

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A more economical process for bio-succinic acid piloted

Bio-based succinic acid has been explored as a renewable building-block for a host of chemicals and polymers, but its production process remains costly due largely to the complicated purification process that generates a large waste stream. Now, researchers at the…

Focus: Packaging

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…

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Methods for Conceptual Capital-Cost Estimation

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…

Conducting Hazard Reviews: A Practical Guide to Implementing Impactful Process Hazard Analyses

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…

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Chem Chronicles: A Look Back on 80 years of Thin-Film Evaporation

Eighty years ago, in 1944, Dr. Hans Müller from Winterthur, Switzerland filed a patent application for a device designed to process liquid substances at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Bern. Liquids prone to fouling on heated surfaces,…

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Tower Doctor: The Case of the Lying Gamma Scan

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…