Process Engineering articles from January 2005

Process Engineering archives from January 2005

COMMENT.
January 31, 2005... Our front cover this month is something of a departure from our usual references to the process industries, in that it shows a 3D visualisation of a computer-simulated model of oil and natural gas deposits - more 'reservoir' than 'process'...

Modest recovery for chemicals.
January 31, 2005... A 'moderate recovery' is in store for the European Union's chemical industry, according to the European Chemical Industry Council, CEFIC. Excluding pharmaceuticals, chemical output should grow by 2.4% in 2004, and 2.6% in 2005, it says. ...

A dose of acquisition for Grundfos pumps.
January 31, 2005... Danish pump manufacturer Grundfos has opened the new year by buying Alldos, a German firm specialising in dosing pumps, for an undisclosed sum. The deal, following the retirement of the former owner of Alldos, Wolfgang Eichler, will allow...

Caspian controllers.
January 31, 2005... Honeywell is to supply and install automation and control for an expansion to an oilfield operated by Tengizchevroil (TCO) in Tengiz, Kazakhstan. Part of a project worth $3billion, the automation system will allow operators to monitor and...

Lyondell takes on Millennium.
January 31, 2005... Texas-based chemicals manufacturer Lyondell has bought Millennium Chemicals, whose operations include titanium dioxide facilities in the UK, for an undisclosed sum. The deal creates the third-largest publicly- traded chemicals company in the...

Focus for Bayer.
January 31, 2005... Bayer HealthCare is to realign its pharmaceutical research departments to concentrate on cancer and cardiovascular risk management, including diabetes treatments. The changes represent a slimming-down of the company's R&D operations, which...

Mercury mission.
January 31, 2005... Crematoria in the UK must halve their emissions of mercury - which arise from vaporised tooth fillings - by 2012, the government has ordered. The new legislation will oblige crematoria to fit mercury filtration equipment. To allay concerns...

CHANGE AT ASPENTECH.
January 31, 2005... Aspen Technology's founder, Larry Evans, has retired as chairman, a post he has held since 1981. He will be replaced by Stephen Jennings, who has been an AspenTech director since 2000, and is also director of a management consultancy, the...

HOMOGENISERS LAUNCH.
January 31, 2005... Italian homogeniser manufacturer Niro Soavi has launched an operation in the UK, serving the food, dairy, cosmetics, biotechnology and chemicals sectors. 'We already have a large number of customers in the UK,' says regional manager Steve...

PDX MAKES COLA SALE.
January 31, 2005... Fluid processing technology specialist PDX has made its first sale of a PDX 25 combined mixer/blender/pump unit to the soft drinks sector, to Coca Cola Enterprises, which manufactures and distributes Coca Cola drinks in the UK. ...

Coriolis to grow.
January 31, 2005... The versatility of Coriolis meters is the main driver for the fast growth of their market, according to a new report from the ARC Advisory Group. A compounded annual growth rate of 8.9% over the next five years is expected, the report says,...

Gulf on-stream for AK.
January 31, 2005... Aker Kvaerner is to consolidate its business operations in Saudi Arabia, merging its two businesses in the Kingdom, John Brown SA and Saudi Davy Company, into a single unit to be called AK Gulf. The company believes this will help it to expand...

Peroxide tech boosts Solvay.
January 31, 2005... Solvay Chemicals is to implement its new high-productivity hydrogen peroxide technology at its unit in Deer Park, Texas. The new technology will increase production capacity by 60%, to a total of 118 000tpa in a single line. 'We have...

Corrosion alliance.
January 31, 2005... Leeds-based corrosion treatment specialist Corrocoat is to form a strategic alliance with Cape Industrial Services, based in Aberdeen, to provide an asset management service for the process industries. Corrocoat produces a range of coatings...

CENTRIFUGE RESHUFFLES.
January 31, 2005... Barry Dumble has been appointed managing director of Westfalia Separator, replacing Richard Montanaro. Dumble was previously with Krauss Maffei Process Technology. Montanaro has become managing director of Centriquip, a decanter centrifuge...

EUROTHERM NAME CHANGE.
January 31, 2005... Variable speed drives manufacturer Eurotherm Drives is to revert to its original name, SSD Drives. The company took the Eurotherm name in a corporate makeover in 1992. Eurotherm's owners, Invensys, sold the drives business in a management...

CANADA COMPRESSORS.
January 31, 2005... Peter Brotherhood is to supply a #400 000 hydrogen compressor system at a refinery owned by Husky Energy in Prince George, Canada. The hydrogen will be used to remove sulphur from motor fuels. Copyright: Centaur Communications Ltd. and...

BP scales back acetone and LAO.
January 31, 2005... Reshuffling its production slate ahead of its planned divestment of petrochemical interests, BP has announced the closures of two UK plants and another in the US. The company is to close the two DF plants at its Saltend site near Hull, which...

MMA is first Nanjing start-up for BASF-YPC.
January 31, 2005... BASF has marked the mechanical completion of its integrated petrochemical site at Nanjing, one of the largest chemical complexes in China, by starting production at its methyl methacrylate (MMA) plant. Run by BASF-YPC, a joint venture between...

Feat of memory.
January 31, 2005... An information management system installed at Sellafield by ABB will give British Nuclear Group, part of BNFL, the ability to access two terabytes of production data. The system, which manages production information on the three high-level...

Fibre provider.
January 31, 2005... Biologists in Israel have achieved the first success in making self- assembled spider web fibres in the laboratory, outside the bodies of spiders. Using genetic engineering techniques to turn cells from insect caterpillars into mini-factories...

Genome hope for clean-up.
January 31, 2005... Chlorinated compounds are notoriously difficult to clean up, and pollution from dry-cleaning fluids and silicon chip production present a particular challenge for waste treatment companies. Research from The Institute for Genomic Research...

Nanofibres line up for implants.
January 31, 2005... Aligning nanofibres within a resin matrix to mimic the structure of collagen fibres and ceramic crystals in natural bone could be the key to producing artificial joints which bond strongly and seamlessly to the skeleton, according to...

Self-cleaning fibre that will suit anyone.
January 31, 2005... The Ealing Films classic 'The Man in the White Suit' saw Alec Guinness inventing a fibre that could repel dirt, allowing him to have a suit made which would never need cleaning. Similar technology is being developed at Clemson University in...

Living polymer scale-up helps WEP to Unilever contract.
January 31, 2005... Coventry-based specialist polymer company Warwick Effect Polymers (WEP) has successfully scaled up its proprietary living controlled polymerisation technology, which allows it to remove the metal catalyst from the crude product mixture with a...

Small scale, high power.
January 31, 2005... A tiny microgenerator, only 10mm wide, could produce enough energy to run a laptop computer or remote process equipment. Developed by engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the generator can be combined with a similarly-sized...

Maintenance matters.
January 31, 2005... Nigel Bowden looks at today's open standards technology and explains how it is helping process control developers and integrators in the drive for optimum production and profit, particularly in the areas of plant maintenance and safety ...

PRM proves its worth in the North Sea.
January 31, 2005... With Foundation Fieldbus technology in place, Shell's Brent Alpha platform in the North Sea is using plant resource management software as a state-of-the-art, real-time plant resource management tool. It manages all instrumentation...

Integrated systems, integrated information.
January 31, 2005... A specialist in information management systems for the process industries, Yokogawa Marex has built on its core plant information management system (PIMS) product, Exaquantum, to provide a systems development and integration capability. ...

SOLIDS HANDLING: Solid protection.
January 31, 2005... As health, safety and environmental concerns increase, there is a growing need for the process industries to develop and use isolator technology to protect both products from contamination and operators from toxic or hazardous materials. Bev...

SOLIDS HANDLING: Getting the solids-liquid mix just right.
January 31, 2005... The process of adding a liquid to a powder is a tricky balancing act - too much liquid and the mixture can become doughy, pasty and sticky; too little, and the mixture is not evenly moistened and consistency is lumpy. Hosokawa Micron...

WEIGHING: Weigh to integrate.
January 31, 2005... Process companies are increasingly looking to integrate their weighing systems into their plant management operations. Stephen Cox explains how this approach can reduce costs, improve process control and boost the productivity of the overall...

Weighing without contact.
January 31, 2005... Scales, balances and load cells aren't the only way of checking weight. BOC Edwards Pharmaceutical Systems has developed a system for a large US drugs manufacturer which uses technology more familiar from chemical analysis and medical...

Snake charms Simon Storage.
January 31, 2005... Simon Storage Ltd has upgraded its County Limerick facility with the addition of a Nova Weigh drum filling system, designed to ensure that its customers get consistent and precise product weights. It also improves throughput and operator...

Fibre specialist keeps it legal.
January 31, 2005... Ahlstrom, a specialist in high-perfomance fibres, turned to Mettler Toledo to solve a legal and technological problem at its plant in Duns, Berwickshire. Needing to update weighing equipment throughout its manufacturing process, the company had...

Rapid installation.
January 31, 2005... Weightron Bilanciai has introduced its GPA range of pre-calibrated vessel weighing kits, which it says are simple and fast to install. Available with individual load cell capacities from 50 kg to 200 tonnes, the GPA kits consist of fully sealed...

OIL AND GAS: Collaborating to compete.
January 31, 2005... Although many contractors pride themselves on their in-house software and data handling systems, Trond Bynes and Lars Line Vaaland explain how commercial off-the-shelf systems can have distinct advantages for projects in the oil and gas...

OIL AND GAS: Energetic operations.
January 31, 2005... The ability to monitor the energy content of hydrocarbon gases would be a boon for the oil and gas industry, as imported gas becomes more important. Norman Glen explains how such meters, currently being developed at the National Engineering...

Pumping out the blockages.
January 31, 2005... Thames Water's Potter Street pumping station in Harlow, Essex suffered from regular clogging, often more than once a day, because its pump was unable to cope with the solid mass of floating debris that collected between purges of the system....

PEEK performance for orange juice.
January 31, 2005... Problems coping with aggressive citrus oil have prompted Alfa Laval to collaborate with one of the world's largest processors of orange juice to develop new polymer support plates for its DSS plate-and-frame membrane filtration systems. ...

Helping amorous oysters keep cool.
January 31, 2005... Oysters may or may not an aphrodisiac, but the molluscs themselves find high temperatures can have pretty much the same effect on their own mating habits. Early last summer, Essex-based Maldon Oysters & Seafood contacted refrigeration...

A marriage of style and substance.
January 31, 2005... The stylish outward appearance of SITA's energy-from-waste plant near Douglas on the Isle of Man hides an internal design that features some stylish process equipment of its own. A fully welded heat exchanger unit from Tranter PHE, for...

Surface-mounts speed up on-site analysis.
January 31, 2005... At the Preem (formerly known as Scanraff) refinery in Lysekil, Sweden, a surface-mounted flow control substrate helped speed up the installation of a process analyser station. The modular fittings, from Parker Instrumentation's Intraflow...

A Total success for leak operation.
January 31, 2005... When a valve on the main import line to the Total North Sea gas terminal at St Fergus, Scotland, started to leak, it was imperative that it was repaired without shutting down a plant that handles some 10% of the UK's natural gas supply. ...

Counting the cost of carbon regeneration.
January 31, 2005... At a major water works in the south east of England, a Coriolis flowmeter is being used to improve the accuracy of calculating the cost of regenerating carbon slurry. Water is purified at the plant by passing it through a bed of activated...

IS modules for pressure calibration.
January 31, 2005... Fluke has introduced a range of intrinsically-safe pressure modules for use with its latest pressure calibrator, the handheld 718Ex. This is available for readings up to either 2bar or 7bar. The ATEX-compliant 700PxxEx series of pressure...

Mercury monitor.
January 31, 2005... Anticipating legislation to extend the requirements for the measurement of mercury levels in the environment, Casella Eti has introduced a range of equipment embracing both lab-based and on-line systems. The key to the range is a high...

Automated flow testing for powders.
January 31, 2005... A new range of 'plug and play' accessories for Freeman Technology's FT4 powder rheometer has fully automated the process of powder flow testing. The FT4 is used in a wide range of industries - pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, ceramics, toners...

One-size software fits all devices.
January 31, 2005... Working on the emerging FDT/DTM standard (see PE, Sept 2004, p33)), Endress + Hauser's FieldCare software is a single tool for multi-vendor devices, performing device configuration and remote diagnostics independent of manufacturer. It is...

A magnetic mix for pharma.
January 31, 2005... Mixing specialist Chemineer has introduced a proven range of magnetically coupled agitators to the UK for biotechnology and pharmaceutical applications requiring high levels of sterility. The agitators benefit from very low maintenance...

Project resource management software automates MTOs.
January 31, 2005... The latest version (V9.5) of Aveva's Vantage Project Resource Management (VPRM) software product now includes an automated preliminary materials take-off (MTO) from P&IDs. In the early stages of an EPC (engineering, procurement and...

More mixers for metering machines.
January 31, 2005... Sulzer Chemtech Quadro Systems UK has added four more mixers to its Quadro range of mixing nozzles. These high efficiency mixers have a patented geometry and are designed to be used with metering/dispensing machines. With 24 and 32 mixing...

Cryogenic cross-flow filter dryer.
January 31, 2005... To complement its existing range of high containment filter dryers, Powder Systems (PSL) has introduced a new 0.05m2 model that can accommodate cryogenic operations down to -196 degrees C. The conventional base plate filtration is enhanced with...

UK and International Plant Cost Indices.
January 31, 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...