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Tower Doctor: X-Raying The Patient: Gamma Scanning Vapor Cross-Flow Channeling

Henry Kister shares lessons learned from troubleshooting distillation towers In 1988, the author led a team to troubleshoot a chemical tower that was revamped to achieve a small increase in capacity (up to 4%) by increasing the tray hole areas…

Facts At Your Fingertips: Heat-Transfer Fluid System Venting

Heat transfer fluids (HTFs) provide heating and cooling of process equipment, including reactors, autoclaves, distillation columns, reboilers, mixers and dryers. HTF system designs should provide for effective system venting, both of residual water at startup and of degradation products during…

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A more-sensitive way to differentiate chiral compounds

Circular dichroism (CD) is the established method for distinguishing between enantiomers — the optical isomers of molecules that are mirror images of each other. In this approach, circularly polarized light is passed through the sample and is absorbed differently by…

Commercial debut for sand-based thermal-energy storage

Last month, operation began at Polar Night Energy Oy’s (Tampere, Finland; www.polarnightenergy.com) first commercial sand-based thermal-energy storage system. The thermal storage system, which is located at the Vatajankoski power plant, is now producing low-emission district heating to the city of…

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Chementator Briefs

Biomethane Last month, NextChem, a subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont S.p.A. (Rome, Italy; www.mairetecnimont.com) was awarded a contract by ENGIE subsidiary Storengy (Bois-Colombes Cedex, France; www.storengy.com) to perform an advanced basic-engineering study for a plant that will produce second-generation biomethane from…

Biosynthesis of renewable, high-energy-density, cyclopropane-based fuels

Cyclopropane-functionalized hydrocarbons can be excellent fuels because of their high energy densities, but organic synthesis of such fuels is difficult. In work recently published in the journal Joule, a research team led by Jay Keasling at the Joint Bioenergy Institute…

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Business News: August 2022

Plant Watch Johnson Matthey to build U.K. gigafactory for H2 fuel-cell components July 18, 2022 — Johnson Matthey plc (JM; London; www.matthey.com) is building an£80-million gigafactory at its existing site in Royston, U.K. to manufacture hydrogen fuel-cell components. The gigafactory…

Neste makes acquisition in Ireland to strengthen its renewable raw-material sourcing

Neste Corp. (Espoo, Finland) has agreed to acquire 100% of Walco Foods, an Irish trader of animal fats. The transaction is subject to the fulfillment of customary closing conditions and regulatory approval. “This is another important step for Neste in…

Chemours to expand production capacity for Opteon YF refrigerant

The Chemours Company (Wilmington, Del.) announced that it will be expanding its Chemours Opteon YF (HFO-1234yf) capacity to help meet customer needs as they continue transitioning to lower GWP refrigerants. The Opteon YF and YF blends refrigerants are now used…

CE Podcast: Deborah Gordon, environmental policy expert and principal at RMI

On this edition of the Chemical Engineering Podcast, senior editor Scott Jenkins speaks with environmental policy expert Deborah Gordon, senior principal in the Climate Intelligence Program at RMI. Gordon heads the Oil and Gas Solutions Initiative at RMI, and is…