Process Engineering articles from April 2004

Process Engineering archives from April 2004

Comment.
April 1, 2004... This year marks two significant anniversaries in the annals of process plant safety--or rather the lack of it. It is 30 years in June since the devastating explosion at Nypro's caprolactam plant in Flixborough, and ten years ago this July there...

Flying the flag.(News)
April 1, 2004... Unaccustomed colour was the order of the day at BASF's recent annual results presentation, with the normally-sober company decked out in the rainbow shades of its new corporate identity. Behind the display was the usual solid performance from...

PICME appoints chemicals chief.(News)
April 1, 2004... The Process Industries Centre for Manufacturing Excellence, PICME, has appointed a specialist on the chemical sector to help companies unlock productivity improvements in their plants. Glyn Hughes, previously with ICI, Elements and Humber...

AMEC wins Iraq contracts.(News)
April 1, 2004... AMEC has won a series of major contracts in the effort to reconstruct infrastructure in Iraq. In conjunction with US joint-venture partner Fluor, the company has secured stakes in contracts worth a total of $1.6billion. The larger of the...

Bayer prepares to split.(News)
April 1, 2004... German chemical major Bayer is to split off a large portion of its chemicals business into a new organisation called Lanxess. The new company will begin trading in early 2005, the company says. The company name, which Bayer says combines...

Competition feeds growth.(News)
April 1, 2004... Consumer concerns over hygiene and food safety will drive 'slow but steady revenue growth' for producers of industrial food processing equipment in Europe, according to a report from market researchers Frost & Sullivan. The market will grow...

Millennium merger.(In Brief)
April 1, 2004... Lyondell Chemicals is to buy Millennium Chemicals, for approximately $2.3billion. Millennium is the world's second-largest producer of titanium dioxide, and operates plants on Teesside in the UK. It also produces acetic acid and acetyls,...

Yokogawa in Russia.(In Brief)
April 1, 2004... Yokogawa has been awarded a contract to supply upstream measurement and control facilities for two offshore platforms, an onshore production facility and two pipelines at the Sakhalin II crude oil and natural gas facility in the Sakhalin Region...

Plowman takes on CHP.(In Brief)
April 1, 2004... Keith Plowman, Powergen's general manager for energy production, has been appointed chairman of CHPA, the Combined Heat and Power Association. He intends to lobby the government for improved incentives to build CHP, so that its target of...

LNG for Invensys.(News)
April 1, 2004... Invensys has formed a global centre dedicated to handle its users in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector. 'The global LNG industry is clearly entering an exciting growth phase that will present LNG producers, transporters and distributors...

Growth for water treatment.(News)
April 1, 2004... The worldwide market for water treatment chemicals is set to grow by almost 7% in the coming years, reaching a value of $35billion by 2007, according to a report from the Freedonia Group. The Ohio-based market research organisation says that...

SCA Packaging, a corrugated fibreboard maker based in Aylesford, is set to claim over [pounds sterling]30 000 in Enhanced Capital Allowances thanks to a new compressed air system from CompAir.(News)
April 1, 2004... SCA Packaging, a corrugated fibreboard maker based in Aylesford, is set to claim over [pounds sterling]30 000 in Enhanced Capital Allowances thanks to a new compressed air system from CompAir. The system supplies a wide range of process...

Coke aids ABB.(News)
April 1, 2004... Monckton Coke and Chemical Company, which supplies high-quality coke to the metals refining sector, has awarded a five-year contract to ABB to provide maintenance services for its plant near Barnsley. As part of the deal, ABB now employs the...

Crane, Broadbent link.(In Brief)
April 1, 2004... Sealing solutions manufacturer John Crane has been named preferred supplier by Thomas Broadbent, the centrifuge specialist. The agreement relates particularly to Broadbent's large-scale centrifuge decanters, which are in increasing demand from...

Aldermaston order.(In Brief)
April 1, 2004... AT Group has been awarded a [pounds sterling]750 000 contract by RWE Nukem to supply control and instrumentation systems for a new waste water treatment plant at AWE Aldermaston. The contract includes 11 process skid units, incorporating...

KSB distributor deal.(In Brief)
April 1, 2004... Pump maker KSB has signed a deal with Birmingham Pump Supplies to distribute products to UK customers. BSP will design and assemble pump packages using KSB components, and will provide a repair service.

Vaccines for CEL.(News)
April 1, 2004... Chiron Vaccines has commissioned CEL International to design and build a new vaccines plant, right, at its Liverpool site in a deal worth some [pounds sterling]85million. Already the largest vaccines plant in the UK, the site will gain...

N[O.sub.x] reduction.(News)
April 1, 2004... Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire has awarded a contract to Mitsui Babcock for new technology to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides. The new technology, a boosted overfire air (BOFA) system, will make Drax one of the first power stations...

Huntsman deal.(News)
April 1, 2004... Foster Wheeler has entered a three-year relationship with Huntsman Petrochemicals to provide front-end engineering, project management, detailed engineering services and plant technical support for all of Huntsman's facilities in Wilton and...

Diary dates.(Calendar)
April 1, 2004... 19 APRIL - 7 MAY The LabView 7 Express Seminar Tour, hosted by National Instruments, starts in Newbury, Berks, and then moves around the country to another 12 different venues. This series of free half-day technical seminars is aimed at...

Reservoir blocks.(Technology Today)
April 1, 2004... Supercritical carbon dioxide is becoming an increasingly popular solvent in industrial processes, often being used to extract organic compounds such as caffeine from natural products. But researchers from Ohio State University have found a way...

Power source.(Technology Today)
April 1, 2004... Dutch chemical major Akzo Nobel is investigating the feasibility of powering a chlorine electrolysis plant using fuel cells. Working with polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell specialist NedStack, based in Arnhem, the company has...

Fertile ground for waste.(Technology Today)
April 1, 2004... Excess C[O.sub.2] generation could be a solution rather than a problem, according to a team at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. Researchers led by Jim Amonette have found that treating...

Self-cleaning sensors.(Technology Today)
April 1, 2004... Sensors which help cars run cleaner, petrochemical plants more safe, and bread good and crusty could become far more effective, thanks to researchers from Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Using the same material which pigments white...

Clean building.(Technology Today)
April 1, 2004... A consortium of European firms in the chemicals and construction sectors are testing a range of building materials which will not only clean themselves, but might also eat environmental pollution. UK-based Millennium Chemicals is among the...

Efficient SM/PO.(Technology Today)
April 1, 2004... Bayer and Lyondell have opened a joint-venture plant which they claim to be the most efficient production facility for propylene oxide (PO) and styrene monomer (SM) in the world. Located at Maasvlakte, near Rotterdam, the plant has a capacity...

... research, recherche, forschung, ricerche, investigacion, tutkimus ...: introducing a regular series reporting on European developments, Gwilym Roberts looks at the EU's plans to increase spending on R&D across the Member States.(Europe News)
April 1, 2004... THE European Commission's Policy News suggests that Europe aims to increase its spending on research and development and technological innovation and bring it up to the level of the world's most prosperous countries by 2010. A new action plan...

Safety critical: by its very nature, the process safety control market takes a conservative view of new technologies, but that could be about to change as major control vendors turn their sights on a sector previously dominated by specialist suppliers. Mike Spear reports.(Plant Safety)(Cover Story)
April 1, 2004... ACCORDING to one of those well-honed sayings from control suppliers, if basic process control is about making product, then advanced process control is about making profit--by allowing the process to operate closer to its design limits and...

Remote, but in touch: monitoring centrifugal pumps is not only effective for keeping energy costs down--it can also help prevent costly equipment outages and keep maintenance shutdowns to a minimum. Alan Bell explains how the system can work, and how it can benefit operators.(Fluids Handling)
April 1, 2004... MAINTENANCE and energy managers are under increasing pressure to control costs. Pumps often represent the largest single energy usage in process plants. Keeping costs down, while at the same time ensuring pump equipment is serviced properly to...

Watching the seals.(Fluids Handling)
April 1, 2004... Although it might seem a fairly simple piece of kit, a pump is a collection of components: the pump itself, the drive, the bearings, and the seal, Stuart Nathan writes. Each of these are complex and have many properties which can be monitored....

Lookout for lagers: new equipment and monitoring systems have helped the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas, to increase productivity, efficiency, and most importantly, the quality of their traditional German-style beers, as Stuart Nathan reports.(Temperature)
April 1, 2004... TEXAS might not seem the obvious place to look for Eastern European-style beer, but thanks to Czech and German immigrants, the town of Shiner has been home to a brewery for almost a century. Residents wanted a beer that tasted like home, so in...

Filling the vacuum: often to be found next in line to packaging and filling machines, vacuum conveying systems offer many advantages. Mike Spear reports on the technique of dense phase vacuum conveying, now finding increased use across the process industries.(Solids Handling)
April 1, 2004... COMPARED with alternative means of getting solids material from A to B, such as mechanical conveyors and bulk containers, moving granules and powders in a pipe has obvious attractions. The transport mechanism can be continuous; the material...

Safer silos.(Solids Handling)
April 1, 2004... Portasilo's Rotoflo range of silo dischargers has been approved for use in ATEX Category 1 (inherently safe) potentially explosive environments. Following independent certification work by Sira, one of the DTI's appointed Notified Bodies for...

Radar extended.(Solids Handling)
April 1, 2004... Vega Controls has extended its range of 2-wire process radar gauges with the introduction of the VegaPULS 68, aimed specifically at solids level and long range measurements. A non-contact device, the PULS 68 has a range of over 70m. It has...

Keeping nanopowders in their proper place.(Solids Handling)
April 1, 2004... The Containment Division of Hosokawa Micron has recently supplied a Vitalair downflow booth to QinetiQ Nanomaterials, the specialist producer of bulk nanoscale solids based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The downflow booth forms part of the...

Sounding out solids storage levels.(Solids Handling)
April 1, 2004... The Hawk Sultan from Partech Instruments is an ATEX-compliant acoustic wave transmitter for measuring the surface level of granulated materials, powders and rocks in stockpiles and in silos and bunkers. Capable of measuring up to 60m in...

Energy boost: sewage treatment works can extract energy from sludge while processing it. CHP engines modified to burn biogas can then generate electricity which can cut plant fuel bills, and even earn money for the operator through a government renewable energy scheme.(Waste to Energy)
April 1, 2004... MOGDEN Sewage Treatment Works in South London, which is designed to process flows of 810Mld for a local population of 1.8 million, has seen two major events that have driven the need to improve its sludge handling and treatment. To take...

Remote monitoring cuts start-up costs.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... At Shell's Petit Couronne refinery near Le Havre, France, the start-up of an FCC (fluid catalytic cracking) unit was remotely monitored by Shell Global Solutions consultants at their offices in Amsterdam, giving commissioning staff at the...

Coriolis hits the road.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... Vegetable oil refiner Karlshamns has successfully trialed Krohne's new Optimass Series 7000 straight-tube Coriolis flowmeter in its road tanker loading bay at its Hull factory. Here vegetable oils, with a variable loading temperature and a...

Keeping Coryton on line.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... During modification work on the dual flare system at BP's Coryton refinery in Essex a problem arose that led to a call to engineering solutions specialist Furmanite. The line to the flare is active at all times to protect the refinery's...

Compact HEX makes it big in US refinery.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... Alfa Laval has made a breakthrough in the US refinery market with the sale of a Compabloc CPL75 heat exchanger to a refinery in the mid-West. To be used as a preheater for crude oil, it is the first time a Compabloc has been specified for this...

Pharma weigh in.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... A leading pharmaceuticals producer has selected Nova Weigh to supply all the process weighing systems for two of its plants. The drugs company recently developed a new successful drug therapy, the manufacturing process for which is complex,...

Severn's severe service valves for Med gas duty.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... Severn Glocon is to supply severe service control valves to the Sabratha gas production platform in the Mediterranean Sea. Once commissioned, the Agip-operated platform will treat 25million [m.sup.3]/d of gas, mixing it with gas currently being...

Soft starter stops shock loads.(Equipment in Action)
April 1, 2004... At its Norwich plant, Bayer CropScience produces herbicides, a process that involves the use of some aggressive powder intermediates. Before use these powders are stored in a 15tonne capacity hopper fitted with an agitator to prevent the solids...

Staying cool over ATEX.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... Many users of electric motors may be concerned that changes in the ATEX Directive have led to a requirement to test EEx d motors and inverters together for compliance when variable speed drive (VSD) systems are used in potentially flammable...

Reference-standard pressure indicator.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... The new DPI 150 pressure indicator from GE Druck is said to deliver a measurement precision/stability performance usually associated with laboratory reference standards. Available as a compact bench or panel-mounted instrument, it features...

Oil-free, energy-efficient air.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... Atlas Copco's new AQ range of water-injected screw compressors is said to combine the benefits of pure oil-free air, a high-pressure capability, and improved energy efficiency--the result of extremely effective cooling of the unit. ...

Ultra high temperature seal.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... A new metal-to-metal sealing system from Garlock Sealing technologies enables service temperatures of 1000[degrees]C to be achieved with low seating loads. Removing the constraints of bulky, high-load bearing flanges, the Ultraseal is...

DCS upgrade for smaller plants.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... Yokogawa's Centum CS3000 R3.04, the latest version of its flagship DCS (distributed control system), now includes a new compact controller that enables the system to accommodate a wider range of applications, including small-scale plants. ...

ABB builds on tradition.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... With its extensive installed base of DCS systems in mind, ABB has launched a new automation system that it says can 'tap into valuable information from a whole raft of peripheral devices and assets that may previously have been ignored.' ...

Driving down the cost of ownership.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... Variable speed drives in the new Telemecanique Altivar 31 range from Schneider Electric are said to dramatically reduce the cost of ownership by offering two key benefits. On average, they are 24% smaller than their predecessors, providing...

Butterflies in deep freeze.(Product News)
April 1, 2004... FCX Orton has developed a special triple eccentric, metal-seated butterfly valve for the expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. The cryogenic Royal valve has been in development for two years and can be used in most LNG...

UK and International Plant Cost Indices.(Plant Cost Indices)
April 1, 2004... Previously to be found in the News pages, we have relocated our long-standing UK and International Plant Cost Indices to this new Engineering Practice section. This important data is of great value to project engineers. For the benefit of...