Process Engineering articles from January 2008

Process Engineering archives from January 2008

COMMENT: Playing with fire.
January 31, 2008... To date, the debate over Kingsnorth has highlighted the paucity of the 'green' movement's energy argument, which, if taken to its ultimate conclusion, would leave the UK to the vagaries of wave and wind power, biofuels and, presumably,...

Coal-fired power crunch.
January 31, 2008... E.on UK may have cleared the planning hurdle with its local Medway council but it is totally in the dark over the government's intentions for its new coal-fired power station E.on UK says it has no idea when UK government will make a...

Ineos agrees to buy more BP businesses.
January 31, 2008... Ineos has agreed to acquire BP's Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) and Ethyl Acetate (EtAc) businesses. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, comprises 500ktpa of production capacity at the Saltend manufacturing site near Hull, along with the Teesside...

Breakdown in chemical chain.
January 31, 2008... Nearly two-thirds (63%) of supply chain professionals in the chemicals industry have no formal processes for identifying and sharing best practices, according to global consultant Accenture. A survey of 400 supply chain professionals in...

Cooper snaps up MTL.
January 31, 2008... Cooper Industries has made an agreed bid for the MTL Instruments Group that values the company at some #144 million. MTL's board has unanimously recommended acceptance and the deal is expected to go ahead in mid-January. MTL develops...

Energy costs lift drives usage.
January 31, 2008... Spiralling energy costs and higher awareness of the energy-saving benefits of motor drives is pushing growth in the global low-voltage AC & DC motor drives market to record levels, according to IMS Research. The market, it said, grew to more...

IN BRIEF: New report.(Brief article)
January 31, 2008... Many leading manufacturers face extinction by failing to bring their production networks up to speed with 21st century demands. Also, they are relying too heavily on short-term outsourcing and offshoring to countries such as India and China....

IN BRIEF: Nano-porous Solutions.(Brief article)
January 31, 2008... Nano-porous Solutions, based in Gateshead, has won a #250k Carbon Trust grant to develop a nano fibre-based system that could potentially halve the energy consumption of conventional compressed air treatment systems The technology employs a...

IN BRIEF: Kelda.(Brief article)
January 31, 2008... Yorkshire Water's owner Kelda is to be acquired by Saltaire Water, a consortium including Citigroup Alternative Investments, GIC Special Investments, Infracapital Partners and HSBC Bank. The deal, which is due to be completed early in the...

IN BRIEF: Joint feasibility study.(Brief article)
January 31, 2008... RWE Power and GE are to jointly develop a zero-emission storage technology, called Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage (AA- CAES). The partners are targeting a new large-scale energy storage system that better aligns distribution...

IN BRIEF: Imperial Chemical Industries.(Brief article)
January 31, 2008... Akzo Nobel has completed its #8bn takeover of ICI, which sees the UK group's National Starch and ICI Paints businesses join the world's largest coatings manufacturer and a major supplier of speciality chemicals. The Dutch owner has yet to...

Clearing the Ethernet mist.
January 31, 2008... Process industry operators need to better understand Ethernet, which is still widely misused as an umbrella term for many disparate standards, technologies and applications Market analyst firm IMS Research forecasts that global shipments...

MARTENS BREWERY: Brewery of the future.
January 31, 2008... While the UK brewing industry is calling for a freeze on duties, new technology in the form of a "Brewery of the Future" concept from Martens Brewery Group of Bocholt, Belgium, could offer a better long- term solution. Martens has built a...

WIRELESS: Wireless: Big bang or slow burner?
January 31, 2008... Wireless sensor networks have huge potential in process control applications, offering cost savings by eliminating wiring and improving efficiency and decision-making through enhanced communications across plant and IT infrastructures. ...

PLANT SAFETY: SIL certs can seriously impair plant safety.
January 31, 2008... Process operators are investing in certificates and experts - that the IEC standards do not require - at the expense of actual functional safety management. Clive de Salis gives a personal view IEC61508 AND PARTICULARLY THE PROCESS...

PLANT SAFETY: YARA's new risk inspection route.
January 31, 2008... Norwegian chemicals major Yara International ASA has adopted a new approach to risk-based inspection (RBI) from Lloyd's Register Capstone Inc across its facilities. The Oslo-based company opted for Lloyd's Register's RBMI (Reliability...

PLANT SAFETY: Spurious trip levels define availability of functions.
January 31, 2008... Functional safety standards such as IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 measure the performance of safety functions with the SIL (Safety Integrity Level). Chemical plant owners, machinery owners and other operators can, therefore, identify process...

PLANT SAFETY: Eye in the sky.
January 31, 2008... Honeywell is developing an industrial version of its Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), an air-borne surveillance camera, which is currently used by the US Army. Target applications include as an aid to emergency services, shoreline monitoring of...

PLANT SAFETY: Husky Energy's 24/7 cyber service.
January 31, 2008... Husky Energy of Saskatchewan, Canada has signed up to a new combined security service established by Invensys Process Systems and Integralis, a provider of managed security services around perimeter security, content security, threat and...

SENSORS: Getting accurate gas emissions data.
January 31, 2008... Choosing the optimum system for removing water from gas samples prior to analysis should involve careful consideration of a range of factors. Tony Howard advises Gas analysis used to be regarded as an expensive necessity, primarily to...

SENSORS: Dow follows the laser path.
January 31, 2008... Dow Chemicals is employing a new laser analyser to more accurately measure and analyse gas emissions from its polymer production and related chemicals processes, particularly those involving chlorine. The tunable diode laser (TDL) analyser,...

SENSORS: Chemical tanks on radar.
January 31, 2008... When Cheltenham-based Premiere Products installed a new 40,000-litre polypropylene (PP) tank for processing and storing detergents, it found that the ultrasonic level measuring system included with the tank could not cope with the foamy...

SENSORS: Surviving heat in Duvel kitchen.
January 31, 2008... Duvel Moortgat is replacing the pH sensors for monitoring wort passing to the fermentation vessels at its brewery in Puurs, Belgium. The company's old sensors had become unreliable and were failing after only a few weeks due to a cleaning...

SENSORS: Pisa project tracks leaks.
January 31, 2008... Up to 40% of fresh water seeps out into the ground through cracks and fissures in aging water supply systems. These leaks go undetected as standard high-end flow sensors - costing up to Euro 2,000 - are too expensive to be used throughout...

SENSORS: Glaxo keeps it pure.
January 31, 2008... Glaxo Smith-Kline's manufacturing plant in Harlow keeps ultra pure water circulating in the ring main pipe work at a constant 85degC - 90degC to eliminate the potential for purification faults caused by bacteria and foreign bodies. When...

SENSORS: Sonic boom ahead?
January 31, 2008... Photoelectric sensors have been the most popular control devices for detecting conveyor-transported packaging items for applications where the target objects are opaque or translucent. Standard systems can, however, prove unreliable in...

HEAT TRANSFER: Feeling the heat.
January 31, 2008... High demand for heat exchangers has put pressure on suppliers, as there is an acute scarcity of some materials, particularly steel, nickel and aluminium, according to Kaushik Ghosh, a market analyst at Frost & Sullivan In addition to...

HEAT TRANSFER: Wireless network is a first.
January 31, 2008... StatoilHydro is employing an Emerson wireless self-organising mesh field network to monitor heat exchanger and wellhead annular pressures on the Grane offshore platform in the Norwegian Sea off the coast of Bergen, Norway. The application is...

HEAT TRANSFER: Gas burner boost.
January 31, 2008... Coating applications company MetoKote UK has reported significant gains from the installation of gas burner tank and oven heating systems for a process line refurbishment at its Daventry and Telford sites. The company is using three TX...

HEAT TRANSFER: New pipe insulation.
January 31, 2008... Exxon recently replaced the cryogenic-service pipework insulation at one of its ethylene plants. The existing polyurethane insulation had been foamed in-situ under metal cladding but had suffered progressive deterioration as vapour retarders...

HEAT TRANSFER: Technip, Wieland target energy-saving.
January 31, 2008... Technip and Wieland are to jointly develop and market new energy-saving heat transfer technologies for LNG and ethylene plants, the companies have announced. The agreement follows more than 10 years of collaboration to develop Wieland GEWA...

HEAT TRANSFER: Uhde opts for India supply.
January 31, 2008... German engineering company Uhde has placed an order worth Euro635,000 with Patel Airtemp of India to supply heat exchangers for a major project in in Port Said, Egypt. Uhde, which specialises in setting up process manufacturing plants, will...

HEAT TRANSFER: Pfizer keeps cool at Cork plant.
January 31, 2008... Pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer has completed a project to improve the efficiency and control of its cooling and boiler water systems at a plant in Cork, the Republic of Ireland. Water supplied to the boilers and towers at the plant needs to...

HEAT TRANSFER: Corrosion problem.
January 31, 2008... A German equipment company faced a major problem with corrosion at one of its installations; the end-user - a Far East-based fruit juice producer - requesting a replacement within two months. The problem was linked to the product to be...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: Virtual plant on the table.
January 31, 2008... Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD in Darmstadt, Germany have developed an innovative tabletop touchscreen to display sequences of events for many industrial processes, which are usually difficult to...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: Brewer support deal targets compressors.
January 31, 2008... Bedford-based Wells and Young's Brewing has entered a maintenance contract with CompAir's High Pressure Division to ensure the availability of its two 5236 air compressors used for carbon dioxide reclamation. The process enables the brewery...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: Scale has bean and gone.
January 31, 2008... Jordan Valley Food Co, a food processor based in Amman, Jordan, has added a new water conditioning unit to tackle severe scale build-up and corrosion problems on the inside of a steam boiler. The company, which prepares and packs broad...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: Automating mega-scale crane.
January 31, 2008... The Usiminas steel plant in Brazil has automated what, it claims, is the world's second largest crane: providing a 260-tonne lifting capacity on its main hook, and 40 tonnes on its auxiliary hook, while transporting molten steel at speeds of...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: Innospec keeps flake flowing.
January 31, 2008... Speciality chemicals company Innospec's new plant at Ellesmere Port features a special materials handling system for charging the process reactor, which manufactures products for personal care applications. The main ingredient for the...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: Casting contract.
January 31, 2008... Sheffield Forgemasters has won a #2.5-million casting contract to cast the steel rams for the world's biggest counter-blow hammer. The hammer is being built by German company Muller Weingarten, which specialises in high power presses for...

TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION: US major backs plasma process.
January 31, 2008... Silicone materials maker Dow Corning Corp is investing $50 million in equipment to reduce the environmental impact of its Midland, Michigan site. The project aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 20%, total emissions by 75% and cut natural gas...

CONTRACTS: Sempell.
January 31, 2008... Sempell AG, part of Tyco Flow Control, has won a $22m contract to supply all control and isolating valves for the high-pressure turbine, boiler and plant balance systems for RWE's BOA 2&3 initiative. The order includes custom-made valves to...

CONTRACTS: Emerson Process Management.
January 31, 2008... Emerson is to be the main instrumentation provider for the Dushanzi Petrochemical Corp oil refining and ethylene project in Dushanzi City, Xinjiang, China - the country's largest ever integrated refinery and petrochemical project, which...

CONTRACTS: CB and I.
January 31, 2008... Nexen Petroleum UK has signed up CB&I for a $100m contract for the topsides detailed design engineering and procurement services on the fourth platform in the Buzzard field complex. Buzzard is a major offshore field operated by Nexen and is...

CONTRACTS: Honeywell Field Solutions.
January 31, 2008... Honeywell is to upgrade the process control technology at a KRONOS plant in Leverkusen, Germany, to increase the site's efficiency and reduce operating costs. KRONOS is one of the world's largest producers of TiO2 pigments. The project will...

CONTRACTS: Technip.
January 31, 2008... Total has awarded Technip a Euro 90m EPCM services contract for a kerosene hydrodesulphurisation unit to be built in the Leuna refinery, near Leipzig, Germany. Due for completion in Q4/09, the facility will produce 120 tonnes/hr of kerosene and...