Process Engineering articles from July 2004

Process Engineering archives from July 2004

Comment.
July 1, 2004... Anyone whose home PC suddenly 'dies' on them knows the problems. In our case, it only involved the loss of address books, correspondence files, sundry holiday picture files--and a crash (no pun intended) remedial course in MS DOS to try and...

Chemical reputation improves.(News)
July 1, 2004... The European public's opinions on the chemical industry are showing signs of brightening for the first time in more than a decade, according to the European Chemical Industry Council, CEFIC. Its annual pan-European survey shows the first...

Carbon activity.(News)
July 1, 2004... World demand for activated carbon is set to top a million tonnes by 2007, with the market growing by 5.2% per year, according to market researchers at the Freedonia Group. Water treatment applications are the fastest growing sector, especially...

Qatar GTL deal for Shell.(News)
July 1, 2004... Shell and Qatar Petroleum have agreed to work together on a large gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in Qatar, to be known as Pearl GTL. The project includes the development of upstream gas production, feeding an onshore GTL plant that will...

C[O.sub.2] trading 'will not hurt profits'.(News)
July 1, 2004... The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will not damage the competitiveness of the UK's chemicals and plastics sectors, according to a study from the Carbon Trust. At a minimum, it says, the scheme will allow firms to maintain their...

Fluor wins Egypt deal.(News)
July 1, 2004... Contracting major Fluor has won its first petrochemical project management contract in Egypt, for a linear alkyl benzene facility in Alexandria. The contract, whose value was not disclosed, is from the Egyptian Linear Alkyl Benzene (E-LAB)...

Bayer invests in R&D.(News)
July 1, 2004... Bayer MaterialScience, the chemicals and plastics division of the German major, is to invest some [euro]900million in research and development over the next two years. In particular, the company plans to optimise production processes to extract...

Gas contract for AK.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... Aker Kvaerner has been awarded a NKr2billion EPC contract for the Ormen Lange gas terminal in western Norway. The contract covers the gas reception and export area in Nyhamna, and the slug catcher, flare tower and emergency shutdown valves for...

Burkert sensors division.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... Burkert Fluid Control Systems has formed a new sensors division to provide product and systems support for customers in the water treatment and food and beverage sectors.

Bursting with success.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... Pressure safety specialist Elfab is to be the exclusive supplier of bursting disc and detection systems to GlaxoSmithKline's manufacturing facilities in Cork. All new projects will be fitted with Elfab products, and existing facilities will be...

Ok for TC.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... The technology divisions of Trouvay & Cauvin's valves and steam and level instrumentation businesses have been brought into a new company, TC Fluid Control, and will move to new premises in Dartford, Kent.

Rewarding chemicals.(News)
July 1, 2004... Millennium Inorganic Chemicals and Rohm & Haas were among the winners of this year's CIA Awards, both being recognised for manufacturing improvements at their UK sites. Millennium's award recognised its efforts at its titanium dioxide plant in...

Closer thais for Foster Wheeler.(News)
July 1, 2004... Foster Wheeler has been awarded an EPC management contract for a world-scale purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant to be built in Thailand by Indorama Petrochem. The companies have not disclosed the value of the deal. The plant, which...

London's thirsty.(News)
July 1, 2004... East London isn't many people's idea of a desert, but Thames Water is planning a system more familiar with arid climes than British cities to secure the supply of drinking water. The company aims to build a reverse osmosis plant to desalinate...

Pulp, not fiction.(News)
July 1, 2004... Invensys has won a multimillion dollar contract to automate a pulp mill in Brazil. Operated by Veracel, the mill will process bleached eucalyptus pulp, handling 900 000tpa of product, using automation technology from Invensys subsidiaries...

Award for Mitsui Babcock.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... Mitsui Babcock has won Intergraph's 'Golden Valve' award for animation for its demontration tool 'The NoxStar Odyssey', which shows how the NOxStar engineering visualisation package can be used to 'walk through' a process plant simulation.

Singapore sling.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... A major water treatment plant in Singapore will be fitted with over 1500 Rotork electric valve actuators. The Changi Water Reclamation Plant is the first phase of the Singapore Deep Tunnel Sewerage System which, when completed in 2006, will...

ABB signs RS agreement ...(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... Engineering component supplier RS has agreed to act as a supplier for ABB's process and automation products within the UK and overseas. The deal covers products such as motors, drives, buttons and safety switches, circuit breakers and process...

... and wins EnCana project.(In Brief)
July 1, 2004... ABB is to supply EnCana with a range of Industrial IT control and safety systems for the Buzzard Field Development Project in the North Sea.

Green alert.(News)
July 1, 2004... Smaller companies in the UK are unlikely to make significant steps to reduce waste and save energy unless constrained into action by legislation, according to researchers from Kingston University. 'Most small firm owners do not accept the...

Water treatment expansion for Dublin.(News)
July 1, 2004... A [euro]5.7million contract to expand Dublin's main water treatment works has been awarded to Degremont and civil engineering contractor Pierse Contracting. The project is an interim step in the upgrading of the plant, which will increase its...

Heavyweight champion: setting off on the first leg of its journey to its home 75 miles west of Shetland, the deck of BP's new Clair rig may be the heaviest man-made object ever moved by wheels on land.
July 1, 2004... Caption: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Heavyweight champion: setting off on the first leg of its journey to its home 75 miles west of Shetland, the deck of BP's new Clair rig may be the heaviest man-made object ever moved by wheels on land....

Safety first for food.(News)
July 1, 2004... Concerns over food quality and safety are set to drive a 4 per cent annual increase in food and beverage plant over the next four years, according to the ARC Advisory Group. The worldwide market will grow from some $280billion in 2003 to over...

Diary dates.(Calendar)
July 1, 2004... 7-9 SEPTEMBER The 17th International Water Jetting Conference, organised by the BHR Group, focuses on applications, developments and the technologies behind a technique that is finding increasing use around industry. The conference is...

Clean sweep.(Technology today)
July 1, 2004... The threat of escalating terrorist attacks is behind a new system for cleaning radioactive materials from porous services. Developed by Michael Kaminski and colleagues from the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, the...

Nut allergy test.(Technology today)
July 1, 2004... An attempt to make nuts safe for allergy sufferers has led to a new set of techniques for detecting minute traces of nuts in processed foods. The tests could help food manufacturers and allergy sufferers alike to reduce the risks of allergic...

Storing carbon.(Technology today)
July 1, 2004... One of the first projects to store carbon dioxide in spent oilwells is claiming that is has safely buried the gas and prevented it re-entering the atmosphere. 'It's one thing to say that underground is a great place to store carbon dioxide, but...

Tiny hotplates.(Technology today)
July 1, 2004... Hotplates the width of a hair which can reach temperatures hotter than the surface of Venus could become vital components in lab-on-a-chip sensor devices and microreactors, according to researchers from Boston MicroSystems in Arlington,...

Arsenic removal.(Technology today)
July 1, 2004... Seven-Trent Services' technology for removing arsenic from drinking water supplies is to be marketed throughout Europe by the Pollet Water Group to both business and OEM markets. The technology, known as SORB 33, was developed in collaboration...

Spend a penny, save a litre.(Technology today)
July 1, 2004... The smallest room may seem to be an odd place for the highest tech, but one of the first nanotechnology innovations to hit the market is likely to have a major effect on public toilets. A German firm, aquadry Deutschland, has developed a urinal...

Innovating policy: any country can take pride in its innovators, but how can that appreciation of innovation be expanded to embrace the European level? Our regular European correspondent, Gwilym Roberts, reports on the challenge for the EU's innovation policy.(Europe News)
July 1, 2004... IN a report on innovation governance, the European Commission indicates that today there is widespread recognition that innovation makes a substantial contribution to our economic performance. And furthermore, that innovation is about far more...

CFD designs on ATEX: now nearing full implementation, the ATEX Directive will impact on all proposed plant modifications or new plant construction. Mark Keating examines the directive's implications and describes how computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can help in the design of industrial gas turbines to ensure their compliance with the guidelines.(Process Safety)
July 1, 2004... GAS turbine installations commonly involve the housing of the gas generator unit within a confined acoustic enclosure. As well as being designed to attenuate noise levels, the enclosure also provides ventilation for controlling convective heat...

Old plants, new challenges: with new security threats adding to the difficulty of optimising plant operations, Mike Jordan says the industry has to improve the productivity and resilience of its ageing plant; while, overleaf, Mike Spear reports on the new dangers facing today's automated plants.(Plant Security)
July 1, 2004... IRONICALLY, the very infrastructure now identified as high-profile terrorist targets--dams, bridges, power plants, transmission lines, refineries and the like--are the assets rendered most 'fragile' by age and under-investment. The fragility of...

Pressure play: pressure measurement is fundamental to the process industries, underpinning many control systems. Tony Cuttill takes a look at the latest technological developments in the field, and explains how these complex devices can be kept accurate.(Pressure)
July 1, 2004... PRESSURE is a fundamental and prevalent physical parameter throughout today's industrial, scientific and aerospace worlds. Pressure measurement therefore plays a key role in communicating the status and behaviour of gas or liquid media...

Transmission trouble? Getting the best levels of performance from pressure transmitter equipment is a more involved process than many manufacturers would have you believe. Here, Trevor Dunger explains why following a manufacturer's claims when it comes to the calibration frequency of their transmitters may not always result in the best performance.(Pressure)
July 1, 2004... PRESSURE transmitters are now ubiquitous throughout industry, measuring everything from pressure to flow rate and levels of liquids in tanks. In applications such as petrochemical plants, there may be thousands of pressure transmitters...

Improving performance: this year's Manufacturing Excellence conference, hosted by Emerson Process Management, provided an ideal forum for chemical plant operators to share their experiences of how to get the best out of their assets. Mike Spear reports.(ME 2004)
July 1, 2004... NOW in its sixth year, the Manufacturing Excellence conference has firmly established itself on the UK process industries' calendar. With its emphasis on bringing together engineers from the chemical and other industries, with their contractors...

Plastic transformations: with the K-Show plastics exhibition set to take place in October, the major polymer producers are keen to showcase their newest developments. Stuart Nathan takes a look at those from the German majors BASF and Bayer, along with Bayer's new offshoot Lanxess.(Plastics)
July 1, 2004... EVERY three years, Dusseldorf becomes the centre of the world for the plastics industry. The K Show, a major forum for plastics and rubber manufacturers, sees all the major players presenting their latest products and technologies. K2004, in...

Energy efficiency the key for water treatment plant.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... A new Astrasand tertiary filtration plant, installed at Yorkshire Water's North Harrogate wastewater treatment works, relies on an energy efficient compressor package from CompAir for its operation. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As Stuart...

Non-stop motor helps fuel Fawley.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... The largest in the UK, Esso's Fawley refinery on Southampton Water processes some 300 000 barrels of crude oil a day, supplying over 15% of all the country's oil products. Fundamental to its operation are the main fractionators, known as...

Big orders for big exchangers.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... With a 33% increase in order book value over last year in just 10 months, heat exchanger manufacturer HRS is experiencing something of a boom year, fuelled in part by orders such as that from India Glycols. The country's second largest glycol...

Grounded for safety.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... At its Shrewsbury plant, Morris Lubricants was advised by the Health & Safety Executive to use a static monitoring device at the filling stage of some of its finished products. This was because of the potential for electrostatic discharge...

Pumping away a condensate problem.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... A new blender, used by Belfast-based Colorite Europe to produce medical-grade PVC compounds, posed a problem for the designers of its steam heating system. The maximum steam pressure the blender could accept was just 0.5barg, but this was not...

Saving brass in brass foundry.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... By installing ABB variable speed drives on its fume extraction filter plant, brass and copper product manufacturer Boliden MKM is saving [pounds sterling]130 000 in energy costs. An energy audit, carried out on the brass casting plant at...

A better view of the process.(Equipment in Action)
July 1, 2004... At its Edinburgh plant, active pharmaceutical ingredients and fine chemicals supplier, Macfarlan Smith, has improved operator efficiency by installing a process colour camera system from Visilume. Installed in a Zone 1 hazardous area and...

Making fiscal metering mainstream.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... The accurate measurement of gas and liquid flows in the oil and gas industry is important not only for operational reasons, but also for fiscal reasons such as taxation and apportioning flows between a variety of producers. 'Existing metering...

Milling at the nano scale.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... The new Dyno Mill NPM (Nano Performance Mill) is aimed at those applications requiring low contamination milling and dispersing within the micron and nanometer size ranges. The mill's special grinding bead separation system allows the use of...

From mars to the North Sea.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... The measurement of water vapour in natural gas is of particular importance in assessing the likelihood of solid hydrates forming in the pipeline. Now, a technology first used on a NASA mission to Mars is being applied to this and other...

Cameras for extreme environments.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... The Legend XE camera system from DVT Sensors is said to bring the power and flexibility of high-speed machine vision sensors to harsh, high humidity or washdown environments, such as those in the food processing industry. Configured in a...

One-stop shop for ATEX.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... With the introduction of a full range of non-electrical, ATEX-certified pneumatic products, Asco Joucomatic says it now offers a single source supply for the widest range of ATEX-certified solenoids, enclosures and automation products for use...

Take control with your mobile.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... Users of Citect Scada systems can now benefit from the company's CAPS (Citect alarm paging system) system, free of charge, to enable them to have alarms, generated by the Scada system, forwarded to the digital mobile phones of authorised...

Sealed and delivered.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... Walkersele radial lip seals from James Walker are now available with the lip-energising spring encased in elastomer and cured in position using the company's new SpringSafe method. This is said to give plant operators peace of mind that the...

Digital pH sensors suit the application.(Product News)
July 1, 2004... According to Endress + Hauser, its new MemoSens digital pH sensor is the first to allow process information to be saved directly within the sensor. The inductive two-way data transfer between sensor and transmitter guarantees interference-free...

UK and International Plant Cost Indices.(Plant Cost Indices)
July 1, 2004... 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 background...