Process Engineering articles from July 2005

Process Engineering archives from July 2005

BASF starts up Nanjing complex.
July 31, 2005... BASF has begun the start-up of its major Asian site, the 220Ha, $2.9billion complex at Nanjing. A 50-50 joint venture between the German leviathan and Chinese state chemicals company Sinopec, the complex will produce 1.7million tpa of chemicals...

Process and control licence for Dow in Russia.
July 31, 2005... Russian polymers producer LUKOIL-Neftekhim is to use Dow Chemical's Unipol polypropylene process, and the complementary Unippac advanced control package, in a new PP plant to be built at the Stavrolen petrochemical complex at Budennovsk,...

Intergraph seals alliance with Bechtel.
July 31, 2005... Bechtel has signed an agreement giving it unlimited use of Intergraph SmartPlant and Plant Design System software, continuing a 25-year relationship between the two companies. The deal, described as 'multi- year, multimillion-dollar', embeds...

Amec makes nuclear investment.
July 31, 2005... Amec is to buy the UK's largest private sector nuclear services business, NNC Holdings, for #25.3million plus net debt of #12.7million. The company hopes to reap the benefits both from decommissioning contracts, and from increased interest...

Calder Hall set for decommissioning.
July 31, 2005... The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has approved the decommissioning of Calder Hall, Britain's first operating nuclear power station, and work is now set to begin in earnest at the site in Cumbria. Part of the Sellafield complex, the...

PPMA appoints new chief.
July 31, 2005... Chris Buxton has been named chief executive of the Processing and Packaging Machinery Association (PPMA), moving from his current secondment at the Cabinet Office, where he is studying the effects of regulations on small businesses. Buxton...

IN BRIEF: BOC IN PHARMA DEAL.
July 31, 2005... BOC Edwards has signed a #7million deal to supply custom-engineered loading and freeze-drying production equipment to a major pharmaceutical manufacturer's European facility in Dongen, Netherlands. The order, for Lyomax freeze-dryers and...

IN BRIEF: FLUOR IN KUWAIT.
July 31, 2005... Fluor is to provide EPC management services for the utilities and infrastructure portion of a world-scale petrochemical project in Kuwait, to be operated by a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Petrochemical Industries Company. The Olefins...

IN BRIEF: CHATTERJEE DELAY.
July 31, 2005... The Chatterjee Group has 'temporarily' pulled out of the consortium which is buying Basell, the BASF/Shell polyolefins joint venture. Nell Acquisitions, an affiliate of Access Industries, is now the sole purchaser of Basell. TCG's pullout...

James Robinson to exit UK.
July 31, 2005... Speciality chemicals producer James Robinson is to close down its plant in Huddersfield, transferring production to existing sites in Germany and India. R&D and sales and marketing will remain in the UK, relocated to new premises including...

Azeri Workhorse sets sail.
July 31, 2005... Known as the Azeri Workhorse, the compression, water injection and power platform topsides sets sail for the oilfields in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. Built by the ATA consortium, led by Amec and also involving Tefken and Azfen,...

Clean coal contracts.
July 31, 2005... Mitsui Babcock has won a #30million-plus maintenance contract at the Drax coal-fired power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, shortly after winning a #6million NOx reduction contract at the station. The maintenance contract, which will last...

IN BRIEF: ICI POLYMERS ACQUISITION.
July 31, 2005... In its first major acquisition for several years, ICI has agreed to pay #14.6million for the emulsion powders business of Celanese. Based in Frankfurt and with sales of E32million, the company will be incorporated into the Elotex business of...

IN BRIEF: STEAM ALLIANCE.
July 31, 2005... Alfa Laval, Feedwater, Armstrong Integrated Systems, CTH and Spirax Sarco have joined forces to form the Spirax Steam Alliance, a partnership aimed at providing an entire steam system package. Services will include provision of hot water, space...

IN BRIEF: RUSSIAN DEAL FOR EMERSON.
July 31, 2005... Emerson Process Management has won a contract to modernise the control architecture of the largest petrochemical plant in Europe, Nizhnekamsknefte-khim's nine-plant styrenes and resins complex in Tartarstan. The company will install the...

Shell seeks Fluor services.
July 31, 2005... Fluor has won a contract to provide engineering and project management services for two of Shell's major European chemicals assets, at Pernis and Moerdijk in the Netherlands. The contract, for which the value was not disclosed, runs for...

Saudi petchems.
July 31, 2005... Innovene, the petrochemicals and refining offshoot of BP, has agreed to collaborate on the development of a world-scale cracker and petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia with Delta International, a Saudi- owned independent development company....

DTI studies CO2 segregation plan.
July 31, 2005... The DTI has announced a #40million package to investigate the feasibility of storing carbon dioxide from power plants in depleted North Sea oil wells. The grant will also fund demonstration projects for clean coal and fuel cell technologies....

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Against the grain.
July 31, 2005... New models to show how granular materials act when stored and handled could help process engineers design hoppers and systems to handle and mix even the most unpredictable solids. Two teams, from Duke University in North Carolina and the...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Electrical microbes.
July 31, 2005... Bacteria used to clean up contaminated land and to generate electricity from organic wastes produce electrically conductive 'nanowires' to transfer electrons from inside their cells to metal particles, according to researchers from the...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: A new kind of chemical processing.
July 31, 2005... A transistor-like structure which combines fluid dynamics and electronic design could form the basis of diagnostic equipment and even microprocessor-like arrays, according to engineers from the University of California at Berkeley. The...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Taste sensation.
July 31, 2005... The nanotechnology sector is abuzz with ideas and innovations, with new techniques for forming microscopic structures being used in coatings, pharmaceuticals, materials science and many other applications. A team from Germany has now used...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Versatile enzyme.
July 31, 2005... An unusually active enzyme might provide the key to synthesising a wide variety of potential pharmaceutical active ingredients, according to a team at the Salk Institute in California. The structure of the enzyme allows many different...

ASSET MANAGEMENT: Refrigeration refresher.
July 31, 2005... Refrigeration and air conditioning systems are rarely adequately maintained, with the result that many systems are storing up potentially catastrophic problems. Colin McNicoll explains how regular refrigerant analysis can ward off the dangers...

ASSET MANAGEMENT: Keeping track of the joints.
July 31, 2005... As part of the oil and gas industry's drive to reduce hydrocarbon leaks, Hedley Purvis is finding increasing demand for its Joint Data Management System (JDMS) from major operators around the world. JDMS manages the history of every...

ASSET MANAGEMENT: Testing time for thermal oils.
July 31, 2005... Speed, accuracy and convenience are said to be the main advantages of an on-the-spot sampling and testing service for thermal oils offered by Heat Transfer Systems (HTS). 'Our customers appreciate the fact that we can now test on site...

ASSET MANAGEMENT: Smarter clean-up.
July 31, 2005... Yorkshire-based speciality chemicals producer AH Marks turned to PICME for help in improving its processes. An 18-month project has seen the company sharply reduce decontamination times for a multi-purpose plant, as Stuart Nathan reports ...

ONLINE ANALYSIS: Inbuilt quality.
July 31, 2005... Driven by an initiative from the US FDA, the pharmaceutical industry is beginning to adopt process analytical technologies. Stuart Nathan looks at how sensors and spectroscopy are being used to scale up reactions from laboratory to batch...

ONLINE ANALYSIS: Flowcell cuts costs.
July 31, 2005... Aimed at operators needing to monitor both processes and discharges, a new demountable flowcell from AstraNet Systems is claimed to provide low-cost ultraviolet, infrared and near-infrared measurements both in- and on-line. 'This is the...

ONLINE ANALYSIS: Dust monitoring.
July 31, 2005... The Sigrist VisGuard from Siemens Automation and Drives allows operators to monitor levels of dust, aerosol and particulates, whether to comply with health and safety regulations or to control ventilation systems. Based around an optical...

ONLINE ANALYSIS: Online chromatography.
July 31, 2005... The Rosemount Analytical Model 700 process gas chromatograph from Emerson Process Management is designed for sensitivity, being capable of measuring in the low parts-per-million range. Along with sensitivity, the design also incorporates...

ONLINE ANALYSIS: AstraZeneca tests constant flux.
July 31, 2005... Ashe Morris's Coflux constant flux calorimeter has 'potential applications across a range of manufacturing process steps,' according to AstraZeneca, the first pharmaceutical company to field-test the device. Coflux allows almost any stirred...

ONLINE ANALYSIS: New generation of UV analysers.
July 31, 2005... Designed to measure levels of dissolved organic compounds in water, ABB's AV400 ultraviolet absorption analyser eliminates the need for sample conditioning filters, mixing chambers and chemical reagents. Making it particularly cost-effective...

EXHIBITION PREVIEW: All part of the process.
July 31, 2005... By its very nature, the practice of process engineering rarely takes place in isolation. Upstream and downstream activities link into the process to form a co-ordinated chain from raw material to finished product. In the run-up to this year's...

PULP AND PAPER: Optimising paper production.
July 31, 2005... Faced with rising raw material and energy costs, pulp and paper producers are having to optimise the performance of their processes to remain competitive. Mike Spear reports on some of the latest advanced control techniques now being applied to...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: RO desalination for China water.
July 31, 2005... A water treatment plant installed by ProMinent Fluid Controls at the freight harbour in Dalian, China, will treat over 1000m3 of seawater a day. The water is used for drinking, washing, and to ensure that 200,000tonnes of iron ore for...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: If all else fails, read the instructions.
July 31, 2005... When Phil Monks, account manager at Busch (UK), the Telford-based vacuum pump and blower manufacturer, was called out to look at one of his company's Cobra vacuum pumps at Avecia in Huddersfield, he immediately identified the cause of the oil...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Gas metering on the grand scale.
July 31, 2005... At the mammoth Tengiz oil field in Kazhakstan on the north east coast of the Caspian Sea, a sour gas injection programme is under way that will increase production from the field by 3million tonnes a year. The sour gas is injected back into...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Making a mark in mixer market.
July 31, 2005... From its head-quarters in Derby, mixing technology specialist Chemineer has designed and built a new polystyrene reactor agitator for a major petrochemical plant in Mumbai, India. The reactor's gear drive has been manufactured with a...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Actuators aid upgrade of water treatment plant.
July 31, 2005... First opened in 1946, Severn Trent Water's Ogston water treatment plant in Derbyshire has recently undergone a major upgrade. Taking water from the adjacent Ogston Reservoir - now renowned as where round-the-world yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Pump reliability boost for Beverley WwTW.
July 31, 2005... Faced with having to cope with unreliable sludge pumps on its auto desludge process, Yorkshire Water's wastewater treatment works at Beverley decided to replace them with eight Mono Industrial E Range pumps. That was 18 months ago and since...

PRODUCT NEWS: All purpose mechanical seals.
July 31, 2005... Goulds Pumps, a division of ITT Industries, has introduced Seal Plus, a highly versatile single and double cartridge, all-purpose mechanical seal. The seal features an O-ring pusher design that is said to provide versatility, reliability and...

PRODUCT NEWS: Heavy duty compressors.
July 31, 2005... The GH range of articulating piston compressors and vacuum pumps from Rietschle Thomas are said to be ideal for many heavy duty applications. They are also used in compressed air systems for industrial and water aeration applications. They...

PRODUCT NEWS: High performance metering.
July 31, 2005... Companies looking for high performance metering pumps for use in hazardous areas can now turn to SPX Process Equipment following the introduction of the Bran+Luebbe ATEX-approved ProCam unit. The ProCam plunger and diaphragm pumps are...

PRODUCT NEWS: Air coolers for process.
July 31, 2005... Using its experience gained in the commercial refrigeration market, Alfa Laval has introduced a range of direct air liquid coolers for use in the process industries. Designed to provide up to 3.5MW cooling capacity as standalone units, the air...

PRODUCT NEWS: A vision of the future.
July 31, 2005... Mitsubishi Electric's new E1000 range of HMIs (human machine interfaces) is said to bring plant mimics to life through its large, high resolution screens, fast graphics handling capability and large memory. A combination that gives operators...

PRODUCT NEWS: Condensate drains in ECA scheme.
July 31, 2005... Under the government's Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) scheme, businesses can receive 100% first year capital tax allowance on energy saving investments. Only products proven to give substantial energy savings are eligible for the scheme...

PRODUCT NEWS: High volume, all-welded heat exchangers.
July 31, 2005... Tranter PHE has launched a high volume Ultramax all-welded plate heat exchanger for extreme temperature and pressure applications, and corrosive applications unsuitable for traditional gasketed exchangers. The large capacity model is...

PRODUCT NEWS: High speed data capture and logging.
July 31, 2005... Yokogawa has expanded its MX100 Daqmaster PC-based data acquisition system with the addition of a new dual-save feature and the Mxlogger software package. Typical measurement intervals on the MX100 include 10ms across 24 channels or 100ms...

UK and International Plant Cost Indices.
July 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...