Process Engineering articles from January 2001

Process Engineering archives from January 2001

Critical pumps.
January 1, 2001... Positive displacement pumps are used in a wide range of applications due to their versatility, compact design, high viscosity performance, continuous flow regardless of differential pressure and their ability to handle high differential...

A paste of flavours.
January 1, 2001... Due to an increase in the number of toothpaste flavours at Colgate-Palmolive, the dosing system required reliable pumps to cope with the demand. Stainless steel double diaphragm pumps from Flotronic were chosen due to their compact design, PTFE...

No leak.
January 1, 2001... The Wilden range of air operated double diaphragm pumps are available from George Meller. A new, compact addition is the 1/4 inch model 025 metal pump with wetted components in aluminium, 316 stainless steel and hastelloy. The pump has an...

Multi-pump gives long life.
January 1, 2001... A new range of Ecodos diaphragm metering pumps from Kinder-Janes provides gentle fluid handling for shear-sensitive ingredients in stringently hygienic conditions. The pumps carry out fluid metering, proportioning and transfer from 0.5 to 1500...

Driving up performance.
January 1, 2001... A new variable speed drive has been added to the Micropump range of gear pumps and drives to enhance pump performance. The MPD55D drive is pre-programmed to accept a wide range of Micropump heads and can deliver a known flow rate or set volume....

'Standard' cavity pumps.
January 1, 2001... The Netzsch Nemo range of aseptic progressing cavity pumps aimed at the food and pharmaceutical industry is claimed by the company to be the only 'standard' aseptic range of progressing cavity pumps available. The SA/BA aseptic range includes...

Application brochures.
January 1, 2001... The peristaltic pump offers a range of benefits over other pumps as only the tube or hose element touches the fluid being pumped. Low maintenance, pumping accuracy, low-shear and hygiene are just a few. Watson-Marlow Bredel has launched a range...

Easy lubricant transfer.
January 1, 2001... The GVR range of selfpriming, external gear pumps are ideally suited to applications where fluids, such as lubricating oils, fuels and hydraulic oils need to be transferred via a robust and reliable pump. Pump Engineering supplies the pumps...

High flow rate pump.
January 1, 2001... The versatile Makro range of piston-type metering pumps from ProMinent has been extended to include the Makro 5. The pump features a newly designed drive unit and offers a delivery rate of up to 40 000 litres per hour with single or multiple...

A model case for treatment.
January 1, 2001... Modelling of processes is common practice in the chemical and oil and gas industries, but it is still something of an innovation in the water industry. Now, however, Cogsys has introduced Cogsys [H.sub.2][O.sub.K], a software package that can...

Advances in reactor design.
January 1, 2001... AEA Technology has upgraded its CFX-ProMixus chemical reactor design software tool, combining powerful analysis tools with user-friendly interfaces to create what AEAT says is 'best-in-class' software. The software provides detailed...

A champion of recycling.
January 1, 2001... Not sure how to meet the growing environmental pressures for recycling? Well, the University of Surrey has developed a software tool to help make informed decisions about material selection and product design for re-use and recycling. Developed...

2001 -- The Mathcad odyssey.
January 1, 2001... The latest version of the well-known maths package, Mathcad 2001 offers complete simulation capabilities and full support of MathML (mathematical mark-up language), the first XML standard to be approved by the World Wide Web Consortium. ...

FEEDing the demand for integration.
January 1, 2001... AEA Technology company Hyprotech has introduced AXSYS 1.0, a front-end engineering and design (FEED) software package that offers 'an integrated process engineering solution for deployment throughout the lifecycle of complex process plants.'...

Cadcentre steps into the future.
January 1, 2001... At the heart of Cadcentre's new Enterprise Engineering Foundation is Open Plant, recently acquired from 1+C=S. Open Plant is a STEP-compliant plant information management system which will help Cadcentre to offer rapid implementation and...

Darchem divested.
January 1, 2001... The Weir Group has sold its Darchem Engineering unit to a newly-formed company, majority owned by Royal Private Equity, a division of Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The sale will realise proceeds of [pound]28million for Weir, comprising...

ICI consolidates catalyst business.
January 1, 2001... ICI's catalyst business, Synetix, has bought the 'CelActiv' business of Celanese Chemicals Europe, another component of the former Hoechst catalysts business it first bought into last year. The deal includes the catalyst manufacturing...

Mergers spell the end for familiar British names.
January 1, 2001... The names of Laporte, Wellcome and Beecham will no longer appear in City reports. Stuart Nathan reports on the latest M&A activities Two stories from the process industries dominated the business pages in the run-up to Christmas: the...

UK manufacturing falling behind retail in investment.
January 1, 2001... 'We might not yet be a nation of shopkeepers, but we ought to worry...' 'The research-based pharmaceuticals industry represents one of the few high technology areas in which the UK can claim to be a leader', says AstraZeneca's ceo Tom...

The day the removal men come.
January 1, 2001... Cost estimating is most often associated with the early stages of new projects, but there are other times in a plant's lifecycle when shortcut estimates of costs may be needed. Refurbishments and retrofitting of specific plant items are two...

Titanium firm seeks backers.
January 1, 2001... A new process to refine metallic titanium by electrochemical methods could being the space-age metal down to earth. British Titanium, a company formed to commercialise the process, is aiming to raise [pound]13.6million on the stock market to...

Getting into a flap.
January 1, 2001... Research into the phenomenon of 'vortex shedding' could help improve flow measurement and lead to the development of new pumping techniques, according to fluid dynamics specialists at New York and Rockefeller Universities. Jun Zhang and...

PTA process suits even larger plants.
January 1, 2001... A new process for producing purified terephthalic acid (PTA) will lead to an expansion in the 'world-scale' size of plants, according to BP Chemicals. The process, whose details are currently classified, also produces less emissions to water...

Oxygen delivery, without a truck.
January 1, 2001... Oxygen users generally order their gases in pressurised bottles, or have it delivered by tanker. Soon, however, light industry and medical users could have another option. The US National Institute for Standards and Technology has awarded...

Sewage cake for farms.
January 1, 2001... Thames Water's Oxford sewage treatment works has improved cake solids which now have the ability to form stable stacks for storage before being spread on agricultural land. The contract with Simon-Hartley involves enhancing both the thickening...

The power to make cost savings.
January 1, 2001... Scottish and Southern Energy's combined heat and power (CHP) station recycles all condensate with savings of [pound]11 500 a year following the installation of a Spirax Sarco condensate recovery system. In the original steam trapping system,...

Fabric silos in new energy.
January 1, 2001... The first alternative-energy-from-waste plant has been built in Bristol and is based on the process of pyrolysis. Compact Power needed to store 40[m.sup.3] of sodium bicarbonate within a restricted space. Two flexible fabric silos from...

Corus steelworks strained.
January 1, 2001... Under a scheme of replacing old filters for new, a giant Corus steelworks has recently replaced a conventional manual strainer with a fully automatic system. Atkins Fulford has installed standard components from its Filtomat range to filter a...

Chivers keeps cool in a jam.
January 1, 2001... Making jam and preserves is a hot sticky business as Chivers Hartley found out when excessive heat was being generated at its plant in Histon, Cambridge. To lower the temperature of 'hot spots', Delta Neu was called in to install cool, ambient...

Unlocking the potential of BATCH PLANTS.
January 1, 2001... Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly looking for ways to improve the efficiency of their batch processing plants, ensuring that they can produce a wide range of high-quality products. Eutech's Phillip Chen explains how computer packages...

A sign of the TIMES.
January 1, 2001... The Food and Drug Administration is clamping down. All companies with electronic signatures will need to comply with 21 CFR part 11. Sign on the dotted line. Signatures are here to stay but not just as a written record. Tracking actions and...

Taking the best POSSIBLE POSITION.
January 1, 2001... The latest families of valve positioners are reaping the benefits of digital field communications and helping take control ever closer to the plant Unless your process can operate reliably with just on/off, open/closed valve control, it's...

European recognition for UK engineers' qualifications.
January 1, 2001... Greater freedom of employment for engineers will result from a trilateral agreement between the UK Engineering Council and its equivalents in Italy and France. Each organisation will now recognise the qualifications awarded by the others. ...

UN agrees POPS phase-out treaty.
January 1, 2001... Following lengthy discussions in South Africa, an agreement to phase out 12 of the most persistent organic pollutants has been signed by 122 countries. The treaty covers production, import, export, disposal and use of the specified PCBs,...

GlaxoSmithKline merger finally complete.
January 1, 2001... The world's largest pharmaceuticals company -- for the moment -- finally began trading at the end of last year. GlaxoSmithKline, formed by the long-delayed merger between SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome, is now a fully-fledged company,...

Approval for Kent CHP.
January 1, 2001... The government has approved the building of all 110MW gas-field combined heat and power station at Northfleet, Kent. The plant will meet the heat and electricity demands of the neighbouring Kimberley-Clarke paper mill.

DuPont set for drugs spin-off.
January 1, 2001... DuPont has announced plans to separate out its pharmaceutical operations, in preparation for a sale or flotation. The business swallowed up 30 per cent of DuPont's R&D budget last year, but generated only 5.3 per cent of sales.

Oil investment spells jobs gain.
January 1, 2001... Some 2500 lobs are to be created in the North Sea oil industry, thanks to over [pound]1 billion of investment, the government has announced. The boost includes an expansion at the pipe finishing specialist Bredero Price Coaters, and 800 new...

Register on-line for Eurochem.
January 1, 2001... All on-lIne registrations for this years Eurochem exhbition will be entered into a prize draw, with monthly prizes of champagne and a final prize of a personal digital assistant.

Cleaner fuels.
January 1, 2001... ABB has won an order worth $160million to implement the major portion of a clean fuels project at Murphy Oil's refinery in Louisana. Under the terms of the contract, ABB will complete engineering procurement and construction with a new...

Sale of Ives.
January 1, 2001... Parker Instrumentation has acquired Ives Valves. The move adds a broad line of manifolds and valves for flow and pressure instrumentation applications. Ives specialises in flow control valves for oil and gas exploration. The design and...

Evergreen.
January 1, 2001... Amec has extended its long term services contract for BP at the Coryton Refinery in Essex. For three years Amec partnered with Mobil until the refinery was transferred to BP Control in 1998 and the contract extended. The new agreement is a...

Milk in Spain.
January 1, 2001... Tetra Pak has won a contract to supply and install new dairy processing equipment in a [pound]7million contract from COVAP, the largest dairy cooperative in Andalusia, Spain. The project will increase production by a third to a total of 600 000...

Fisher- Rosemount adds MDC Technology to team.
January 1, 2001... Fisher-Rosemount, a subsidiary of Emerson Electric, has acquired MDC Technology, for an undisclosed sum, as part of a long term strategy to encompass complete asset utilisation beyond process control. The acquisition strengthens...

An influx from Europe.
January 1, 2001... As a new generation of flow technology shifts away from the traditional flow meters, companies are springing up and taking advantage of a vigorous market of faster, more user friendly technology. Huba Control, based in Switzerland has this...

Caxios' supplement.
January 1, 2001... Caxios, part of the $37 billion global energy and communications group, Enron, has completed one of the world's largest vitamin C plants for the food processing industry. In conjunction with Foster Wheeler Energy, construction of the plant for...

BASF sells drugs division.
January 1, 2001... German giant states that sale will allow it to concentrate on areas of 'innovative chemistry' and efficient 'Verbund' business integration BASF has sold its pharmaceuticals operations, Knoll Pharma, to US firm Abbott Laboratories for...

ICI completes chemicals exit.
January 1, 2001... ICI has agreed to sell its remaining industrial chemicals business to Ineos Acrylics for around [pound]325million, signalling the end of its transformation into a speciality chemicals firm. The businesses to be sold are Klea, which produces...

BP and Solvay join forces in PP.
January 1, 2001... A joint venture and asset-swap between BP and Solvay sees both companies seeking to strengthen their polyolefin businesses in the US and Europe. The deal covers businesses with a total turnover of $2.6 billion. The joint venture covers...

'TRIZ' in the spotlight at IAS.
January 1, 2001... The forthcoming Integrated Automation Solutions (IAS) 2001 exhibition will feature the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) as the centrepiece of its programme of conferences. Developed in Russia over the past 50 years, TRIZ has...

New Chairman to step up at Shell.
January 1, 2001... Phil Watts, currently managing director of Shell's exploration and production business, is to take over as chairman from July this year, following the retirement of Mark Moody-Stuart. A seismologist by training, Watts has been with the company...

ACTIVE set to merge with ECI.
January 1, 2001... ACTIVE, the organisation which promotes alliances between contractors and operators, is to merge with the European Construction Initiative (ECI) in April. The merger will help preserve and disseminate best practices developed by ACTIVE members...

Lafarge bids for Blue Circle.
January 1, 2001... French building materials group Lafarge has renewed its efforts to capture Blue Circle, after failing in an hostile bid last year. The new bid, on a friendly basis, is 13 per cent higher than its previous offer and has been approved by the Blue...