Process Engineering articles from February 2005

Process Engineering archives from February 2005

BASF buys e-chemicals.
February 22, 2005... BASF has paid E270 million for the electronic chemicals business of Merck KgaA, boosting the company to a leading position in this market. The deal will strengthen market position in Europe and Asia, and give the company improved access to two...

Shell Chemicals improves.
February 22, 2005... Shell's record year, with 2004 net income reaching $18.5 billion, included $930 million earnings in the chemicals division. Higher operating rates and more favourable margins were behind the performance, which followed a $209 million loss in...

Oil and gas for Foster Wheeler.
February 22, 2005... Foster Wheeler Energy has formed a new oil and gas division, aimed at expanding the company's presence in this sector. Headed by Malcolm Harrison, the division is headquartered in Reading. The new division brings together all of Foster...

Honeywell wins lifecycle contract.
February 22, 2005... Honeywell has been awarded a $6.5 million contract to supply lifecycle management (LCM) services to Lyondell Chemie Nederland, the Dutch subsidiary of the US chemicals major Lyondell. Representing Honeywell's first LCM contract in Europe,...

Training simulation.
February 22, 2005... Invensys Process Systems and Hyperion Systems Engineering have formed a joint venture to supply operator training simulators (OTS) to the process and power generation industries. Claiming to be the largest OTS supplier in the world, the...

Heat services.
February 22, 2005... Alfa Laval is to establish a network of plate heat exchanger reconditioning and regasketting services in the UK and Ireland by appointing 'suitably qualified companies' as official agents. The company operates the largest purpose-built...

Control collaboration.
February 22, 2005... Emerson Process Management is to collaborate with the Applied Control Technology Consortium, a technology transfer organisation linked to the University of Strathclyde, to improve techniques for monitoring and managing the control...

DANFOSS'S TSUNAMI AID.
February 22, 2005... Danish drives manufacturer Danfoss is to supply three desalination plants to aid the post-tsunami reconstruction efforts in India, Indonesia and Thailand. 'We have chosen to answer the Danish government's request to focus on providing clean...

ABB WINS OIL AND GAS ORDER.
February 22, 2005... ABB is to provide the entire automation and instrumentation suite for Petro-Canada's De Ruyter oil and gas production platform, in a deal worth over #2.5 million. The facility, to be built in the Dutch North Sea, will be the first new-build...

CHILLS FOR BOC.
February 22, 2005... BOC has bought the CARE range of 'environmentally sensitive' refrigerants from Calor Gas. The gases, endorsed by Greenpeace and Unilever, are high-purity hydrocarbon blends. Copyright: Centaur Communications Ltd. and licensors

CIA cheers EC.
February 22, 2005... The UK Chemical Industries Association has welcomed a new plan for economic growth and employment issued by incoming European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. The plan includes a 'balanced agreement on REACH... which takes into...

Process exploitation: it's clear as Crystal.
February 22, 2005... The process industry in the UK would be better off exploiting its existing leading-edge technologies rather than spending time and money on developing new technologies which only offer small improvements, according to the md of the Crystal...

Rockwell and E+H to team up on configuration project.
February 22, 2005... Rockwell Automation and Endress + Hauser have joined forces to develop new methods of configuring process instrumentation. The companies will use technologies such as Foundation Fieldbus and the HART protocol to ally E+H's devices with...

CHEMICAL INVESTMENT 'RECOVERING' IN 2004.
February 22, 2005... Capital investment in the UK chemicals sector is estimated to have increased by 2% in 2004, the first improvement for two years, according to market research organisation MBD. Investment in the sector exceeded #2.1billion in 2004, it says in a...

Supply-side sustainability.
February 22, 2005... Stuart Nathan reports from the UK Chemical Industries Association's annual Business Issues Conference, where ensuring sustainability through management and stewardship of the supply chain was at the top of the agenda With the REACH...

Abalone in the armoury.
February 22, 2005... Abalone, a seaweed-eating marine snail, is prized for two reasons: seafood aficionados consider it a delicacy, and jewellery makers use its shell for mother-of-pearl. The latter material, more properly called nacre, is also attracting attention...

An appealing synthetic.
February 22, 2005... A research group from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has developed a new material to join the small but growing group of plastics made from renewable resources, by polymerising limonene, an olefin found in the peel of citrus fruits....

Exploiting the channels.
February 22, 2005... Lab-on-a-chip technology is bringing process industry techniques of flow management and continuous reaction to the research laboratory, albeit on a tiny scale. The techniques also have potential for industrial processes, especially when...

Codes for nuclear safety.
February 22, 2005... Simulation programs to prevent critical failures in nuclear reactors are being updated by researchers from Purdue University in Indiana, Sandia National Laboratories and US engineering companies. Originally developed in the wake of, and...

Fastest fossilisation for filtration.
February 22, 2005... Petrified wood is a quirk of nature. Trees felled during volcanic eruptions, buried for millions of years and sealed away from oxygen, will gradually turn to stone as silica from the lava replaces the cellulose in their structures. A team from...

Stretch and glow.
February 22, 2005... Adding a small amount of a tailored fluorescent dye to commercial polymers can create a material which glows when under stress, researchers at Case Western Reserve Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio have found. The polymer blends could be used to...

TECHNOLOGY TOMORROW: Innovation nation.
February 22, 2005... The UK's process sector stands or falls on its ability to innovate, and to apply those innovations. Lord Sainsbury explains how the government aims to help foster the inventive streak that will give industry a competitive edge Industry...

MIXING & BLENDING: Design decisions.
February 22, 2005... The price of the ingredients of speciality steels has risen steeply over the past year, leading to increases in costs for process equipment. Bryan Moores and Nick Davies of Chemineer explain how informed choices in mixer specification can save...

MIXING & BLENDING: Desperate measures?
February 22, 2005... Nissan was forced to halt production at some of its car plants in Japan for almost a week in November due to a shortage of steel, resulting in the loss of production of about 25 000 vehicles. Some analysts believe that increasingly tight...

MIXING & BLENDING: Adding the right mix.
February 22, 2005... A packaged automated dosing system is helping a leading baker maintain the accuracy and repeatability of its dough-making batch processes. Mike Spear reports With the increasing popularity of home breadmaking machines, it's tempting to...

Impeller for shear-sensitive mixes.
February 22, 2005... The Sentinel impeller from Mixing Solutions has been recently developed to mix highly shear-sensitive materials. Suitable for new installations or retrofitting to any existing mixer drive, the impeller features wide, large diameter blades...

Cutlass cuts through crude.
February 22, 2005... Designed for applications in the oil industry, the Cutlass-F, fixed angle, side-entry mixer from Mixing Solutions features impeller technology that is said to give superior performance for homogenising, blending and temperature uniformity of...

Customised mixer is a boon for Adams.
February 22, 2005... Adams Foods, part of Kerrygold, wanted to improve the mixing of its milk powders after experiencing a series of irritating problems on its old equipment. The specification was for equipment to mix milk powders with up to 35% fat content and...

Heinz means speedier sachet production.
February 22, 2005... Speed was of the essence when Carlisle Process Systems was commissioned by food manufacturer Heinz to provide new mixing vessels for sauces at one of its UK plants. To keep downtime to a minimum, Heinz wanted the whole job - including a...

REACTOR TECHNOLOGY: Ring the changes.
February 22, 2005... Chemistry and chemical engineering meet with the design of catalysts, which can have profound effects on how processes are designed and how efficiently they operate. Stuart Nathan reports from speciality chemicals producer Dynamic Synthesis,...

REACTOR TECHNOLOGY: Positive reactions.
February 22, 2005... The innovative concept of a constant flux reactor has just successfully come through its first field trials at a leading speciality chemicals producer. Mike Spear reports on this patented technology that can turn stirred tank reactors into...

TEMPERATURE: A practical guide to IR.
February 22, 2005... Infrared thermometers play a central role in the control of many processes. Fred Ritchie offers some guidance on how to look after them in the field Infrared (IR) thermometers use optical lenses to gather energy from a spot on the target...

IR linescanner improves kiln performance.
February 22, 2005... A linescanner from infrared temperature measurement specialist Land Instruments has improved the performance of a cement kiln in Cameroon. The Landscan LSP 62 was developed with monitoring the shell temperature of rotary kilns very much in mind...

MAINTENANCE: Leak-free start-up.
February 22, 2005... A new service from sealing specialist Furmanite offers a guaranteed leak-free start-up of new plant or of those being brought back online after maintenance shutdowns. Mike Spear reports Ensuring the integrity of critical flanges and joints...

Gearbox repair maintains flow.
February 22, 2005... A routine condition monitoring survey, conducted by Engenica at Thames Water's purification plant in Edmonton, North London showed unusually high thermographic readings from a speed increaser gearbox. The gearbox drives a fan blower that...

Clair field development counts on Coriolis.
February 22, 2005... One of the largest offshore developments in the North Sea, the Clair field has its onshore reception facilities at the Sullom Voe oil terminal on the Shetland Islands. When oil shortly starts flowing from the field it will be taken onshore via...

No power problem for remote meters.
February 22, 2005... Three solar-powered multiphase meters from Jiskoot are to be installed on unmanned platforms in the Arabian Gulf Safaniya and Marjan oilfields to help enhance production and reservoir management. Providing the required continuous high...

Viscometer solves sampling problem.
February 22, 2005... The problem with off-line analysis of a reaction is rather like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - by the time you have your measurement, what you thought you were measuring will probably already have changed. This was certainly the case for...

Insulation helps in award-winning project.
February 22, 2005... A multi-million pound project to replace ozone-depleting HCFC-based chillers at a major UK pharmaceutical manufacturer featured the use of Pittsburgh Corning's Foamglas cellular glass insulation. Winning an ECI- Active award for project of the...

Tucking into a Tunnocks.
February 22, 2005... Solids handling specialist Spiroflow has installed a flexible spiral conveyor at the new chocolate pre-blending plant of Thomas Tunnock in Glasgow. Renowned for its famous tea cakes - not to mention caramel wafers, snowballs and caramel logs...

Heavyweight exports to Korea.
February 22, 2005... Wanting to accurately weigh massive eight-legged 1000tonne coal silos at its plant, a Korean manufacturing company placed an order with Applied Weighing for 65 of the UK company's Safemounts, load cells and intelligent weight controllers. ...

Customer support service strengthened.
February 22, 2005... Rockwell Automation is introducing a new approach to customer support services with the launch this month of its TechConnect programme. Building on the success of its engineering call centre at its UK headquarters in Milton Keynes, Rockwell...

UK and International Plant Cost Indices.
February 22, 2005... First appearing in Process Engineering in 1973, our long-running UK and International Plant Cost Indices provide important data for process design and project engineers. For the benefit of new readers, a brief explanation of the...