Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers On an assignment to troubleshoot a vacuum tower for a petroleum refinery, my team was tasked to “run simulations to determine why the heavy vacuum gas oil (HVGO) has a very…
Presented here are practical points to help in the selection of plate-and-frame and air-cooled heat exchangers With a wider variety of heat exchangers to choose from than ever before, there are a number of variables to be considered when assessing…
Achema (www.achema.de), the global forum for the chemical engineering and process industries presented by Dechema e.V. (www.dechema.de), is taking place August 22–26 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. This year’s event will feature over 2,000 exhibitors spread out over 12 exhibit…
Nickel alloys have long been the default choice for demanding applications in the chemical process industries (CPI). A new grade of stainless steel offers an alternative Demanding chemical engineering applications, such as plate heat exchangers (PHEs; Figure 1), tubing, pipes…
Track pump operation with this monitoring system This company has developed Smart Monitoring for its ecoflow and triplex metering and process diaphragm pumps (photo). A combination of sensors integrated into the pump and software-based evaluation provides the user with comprehensive…
Presented here is a fast and flexible solution that removes solids, traces of water and gel in a single operation, therefore significantly reducing the time it takes to perform the process during silicone production Reliable silicone manufacturing operations depend on…
Use this guide to aid the selection of conveying technologies for applications in powder and bulk solids handling Many sectors of the chemical process industries (CPI) — including chemicals, plastics, batteries, mining, power generation, plastics, food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and others…
Dispersion modeling of atmospheric releases from pressure-relief valves and other sources can be time-consuming. Follow this screening process to categorize which installations require detailed modeling and focus effort where it is most consequential The safe design of atmospheric relief/venting systems…
Platinum is widely used for many catalytic reactions, and because the precious metal is so expensive, efforts have been ongoing to reduce the amount of Pt required to perform reactions. Among these efforts are the use of nano-dispersions, clusters and…
Countercurrent heat-exchange with difficult slurries, such as those of mineral ore or stringy vegetables, has not been possible because suspended solids pack and foul the shell of shell-and-tube designs and plug the passages in plate-and-frame units. Now, a recently patented…