Process Engineering articles from November 2005

Process Engineering archives from November 2005

COMMENT.
November 17, 2005... By its very nature the chemical industry is a risky business, but managing the risks is fundamental to the industry's success. Which is why the Chemical Industries Association last month welcomed the HSE's report showing a steady decline in...

Government looks to allay gas fears.
November 17, 2005... Concern over UK natural gas supplies for the coming winter and beyond were allayed somewhat last month by energy minister Malcolm Wicks. Speaking during the first visit to the UK of the new Norwegian minister for petroleum and energy, Odd...

New UK md for Alfa Laval.
November 17, 2005... Alex Syed has been appointed as the new managing director of Alfa Laval's UK operation. He succeeds long-standing incumbent Nish Patel, who is moving within the global corporate organisation to take up the post of managing director of Alfa...

PLC growth reflects trend to industry globalisation.
November 17, 2005... The worldwide market for programmable logic controllers (PLCs) is set to grow at an annual compound rate of 5.9%, according to a new study by the ARC Advisory Group. The PLC market was worth nearly $7billion in 2004 and is now forecast to...

UK R&D moves higher up the board.
November 17, 2005... The number of middle-sized UK companies that are very R&D intensive has increased by more than 75% over the past four years, according to the DTI's annual 'Research and Development Scoreboard' published last month. There are 100 more UK...

CIA welcomes report on tougher HSE stance.
November 17, 2005... The Chemical Industries Association (CIA) has commended last month's report from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) regarding health and safety related offences and penalties for 2004/5. The report highlights the fact that the number of...

Energy Centre expands service.
November 17, 2005... The Melsec Energy Centre, established three years ago by Mitsubishi Electric, is to expand its offerings from information and advice to include full energy management programmes. 'As a technology company we could not provide the answers to...

IN BRIEF: THE BILLION DOLLAR PLANT.
November 17, 2005... The billion dollar plant... give or take a million or so. Fluor has been awarded a contract worth $999million by Abu Dhabi Gas Industries to provide EPC and commissioning serivces for the Habshan gas complex expansion project. Fluor's UK office...

IN BRIEF: METHANOL ALLIANCE.
November 17, 2005... The Italian subsidiary of Foster Wheeler and the Swiss company Methanol Casale have formed a strategic alliance to served the worldwide methanol market. The alliance builds on FW's plant contracting experience and Casale's strengths in...

IN BRIEF: BP OPTS FOR AMEC.
November 17, 2005... AMEC has won the engineering and project management contract for the BP Harding offshore gas project in the North Sea. Due to start in January 2006, the project includes a new platform to be linked by bridge to the existing one. ...

IN BRIEF: NEW RUBBER ASSOCIATION.
November 17, 2005... A new UK trade association, the British Rubber and Polyurethane Products Association (BRPPA), is to be launched on 1 January 2006. The previous association covering the sector, the British Rubber Manufacturers' Association (BRMA), will continue...

IN BRIEF: HONEYWELL DONS CAPE.
November 17, 2005... Honeywell has become a member of the CAPE-OPEN Laboratories Network (Co- LaN), a neutral industry and academic association promoting open interface standards in process simulation software. Copyright: Centaur Communications Ltd. and...

IN BRIEF: PIMS TOPS 500.
November 17, 2005... Yokogawa GMSC, Cowes, Isle of Wight, has sold its 500th Exaquantum plant information system (PIMS) since its first release in 2000. The latest system is part of a major upgrade at India's largest public oil refinery, which also includes the...

IN BRIEF: KOREAN EXPANSION.
November 17, 2005... Total and Samsung are to expand their 50/50 owned petrochemicals plant in Dasean, South Korea.The cracker will be revamped up to 850,000tpa from the current 650,000tpa. Copyright: Centaur Communications Ltd. and licensors

Invensys on the wireless.
November 17, 2005... Following last month's announcement of its series of asset performance management solutions (see PE, October p5), Invensys Process Systems this month added another piece to its jigsaw with the unveiling of its strategy for wireless...

Top level change at Emerson in UK.
November 17, 2005... Emerson Process Management has promoted Mark Dutton to the position of general manager, UK and Ireland. Dutton was previously sales director, instrumentation, based at the company's Stockport offices where he will continue in his new role....

Control majors consolidate FDT Group.
November 17, 2005... With the exception of Emerson Process Management, all the major process control and instrumentation companies have now lent their support to the recently formalised FDT (Field Device Tool) Group. Announced last month at the ISA Expo 2005...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: CO2 recovery j-v.
November 17, 2005... BASF and Japanese firm JGC Corporation have teamed up to devise new technologies for removing carbon dioxide from natural gas and storing it safely and securely. Aiming to reduce the costs of carbon capture and storage by some 20%, the project...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Mercaptan testing can be automated.
November 17, 2005... The sulphur content of fossil fuels has been a problem for decades. Sulphur is present in some oil and gas in the form of mercaptans, acidic organic compounds, which are corrosive, toxic and foul-smelling. Testing for them is an awkward and...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Golden opportunities.
November 17, 2005... Gold nanoparticles could be a key ingredient for 'clean' catalysts, according to UK researchers. In a paper in Nature, the researchers claim that carbon-supported gold nanoparticle clusters can be fine- tuned to catalyse highly selective and...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: One for the pot.
November 17, 2005... Tea is so ubiquitous to us in Britain that it's easy to overlook it as a high-value product. However, it's imperative for tea merchants to ensure that the highest proportion possible of their product consists of tea leaves. The Fraunhofer...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Whistling while you work, safely.
November 17, 2005... Give a little whistle, chirped Jiminy Cricket in Disney's classic Pinocchio. But while the moralistic insect recommended whistling as an aid to good behaviour, researchers from Penn State University in Pennsylvania have invented a device where...

SAFETY SYSTEMS: Subsea success.
November 17, 2005... Since the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, process and production safety has been the dominant feature of offshore operations. Des Irvine describes the development of the world's first subsea high-integrity pressure protection system Back in...

APPLICATIONS: Advanced control systems boost polymer production.
November 17, 2005... SABIC Europe, the fourth largest polyolefin producer in Europe, has expanded its use of Pavilion Technologies' advanced process control polymer solution to two Unipol polypropylene lines at its Gelsenkirchen plants in Germany. Together...

APPLICATIONS: Cementing the middle-ground position.
November 17, 2005... The Australian SCADA company Citect is looking to occupy the middle ground between real-time plant information systems and business level ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems with its new Ampla MES (manufacturing execution systems)...

PROCESS SYSTEMS: From minor to major.(Company Profile)
November 17, 2005... Starting with just four engineers making electric meters in 1915, Yokogawa has come a long way in the world of process control and automation - and aims to go much further, as Mike Spear found at the company's 90th anniversary celebrations in...

PROCESS SYSTEMS: Project execution experience.
November 17, 2005... Addressing the global symposium during Yokogawa's 90th anniversary celebrations, Simon Lam paid tribute to the company's involvement in the CSPC (CNOOC and Shell Petrochemicals Company) Nanhai petrochemical project. Lam is ceo of CSPC, the...

PROCESS SYSTEMS: Future-proofing field engineering.
November 17, 2005... As the influence of the newly incorporated FDT Group (see News pages this month) accelerates industry moves towards enabling open access to multi-vendor fieldbus devices, Yokogawa unveiled what it says is the world's first portable field...

PROCESS SYSTEMS: Widening the world of wireless.
November 17, 2005... In common with most of the major control vendors, Yokogawa is placing great store by the future for wireless technologies. On display at the Technology Innovation Fair were what the company calls 'temporal sensors' - basically sensor devices...

HYGIENIC PROCESSING: Retailers set CIP pace.
November 17, 2005... With major retail companies demanding higher hygiene and production standards of their suppliers, Paul Griffin gives an overview of the origins and importance of adopting efficient cleaning-in-place systems in the food and drink industries ...

HYGIENIC PROCESSING: Cleaning-in-place in practice.
November 17, 2005... With a history dating back to 1885, Carlisle Process Systems (CPS) - formerly well known in the UK as Wincanton Engineering - has established itself as a leading worldwide supplier of hygienic process systems. It boasts a reputation that has...

HYGIENIC PROCESSING: Into the ultraviolet.
November 17, 2005... We all know the dangers of strong sunlight, but the beneficial use of ultraviolet radiation is becoming increasingly popular in the process industries as a reliable and cost-effective means of disinfection. Mike Spear talks to a leading...

ATEX COMPLIANCE: Countdown to ATEX.
November 17, 2005... Next year the second part of the ATEX Directive comes into force. Here Geoff Jennings gives some advice on what needs to be done between now and the cut-off date of 1 July 2006 to ensure your vacuum pumps are in compliance With the...

PHARMACEUTICALS: Vials move into vision.
November 17, 2005... At the end of many pharmaceutical production lines, vials may be small but they can lead to big problems. Anna Laan reports on an integrated vial tray inspection system that combines automatic tray handling with machine vision Quality,...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Designing savings into pipework.
November 17, 2005... The largest manufacturer of phosphate fertiliser in the US, Mosaic wanted to upgrade the piping at its sulphuric acid plant in Riverside, Florida, from the original cast iron to stainless steel alloy. The new design promised lower corrosion and...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Vibration sensing keeps plant clean.
November 17, 2005... At Ineos Chlor's chlor-alkali plant at Runcorn, Cheshire, it was recognised that a build-up of solids on the plant's extraction fans could seriously inhibit production. Matthew Jessop, the plant's business machines engineer, explains: 'In...

EQUIPMENT: Capacitance probe monitors phenol process interface.
November 17, 2005... At its Wyke, West Yorkshire, site, contract chemicals manufacturers A H Marks produces a wide range of speciality chemicals in batch processes involving one to three stage syntheses. Many are phenolic products and key aspects of the refining...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Analysis upgrade at Grangemouth ups efficiency.
November 17, 2005... Although only commissioned in 1993, the KG (Kinneil Gas) ethylene cracker operated by Innovene at its Grangemouth, Scotland, site was having problems in finding spare parts for some of its instrumentation. In particular, the company decided to...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Bursting discs bring process improvements.
November 17, 2005... During the recent upgrade of its Jarrow, Tyne & Wear, facility, speciality chemicals producer Rohm and Haas installed Elfab Arma-Gard graphie bursting discs with Integral Flo-Tel detection. The Jarrow site, which manufactures biocides and...

EQUIPMENT IN ACTION: Improving ATEX inspections.
November 17, 2005... Speciality chemicals company Warwick International has reduced by 40% the time taken by contractors to inspect its hazardous area equipment in compliance with the ATEX 137 regulations. The savings have been made by switching from the...

PRODUCT NEWS: Peristaltic pumps for petrochemicals.
November 17, 2005... After three years of research and having identified what it says is a revolutionary new hose material, Watson-Marlow Bredel has launched PetroProof - claimed to be the world's first peristaltic pump capable of handling hydrocarbon liquids in...

PRODUCT NEWS: Paperless recorder features ease of use.
November 17, 2005... Eurotherm's latest family of paperless graphic recorders, the 6000 Series, is claimed to set new standards in terms of ease of use, ease of configuration, security of data and adaptability. Replacing the earlier 5000V Series, but with full...

PRODUCT NEWS: Pressure range takes the pressure.
November 17, 2005... ABB has expanded its 2600T pressure transmitter range with the addition of a new device suitable for use in harsh process environments. Manufactured from 316 stainless steel, with an all stainless steel sensor diaphragm, the type 261...

PRODUCT NEWS: Compact exchanger hits the heights.
November 17, 2005... Although renowned for their compactness in comparison with traditional shell-and-tube heat exchangers, plate heat exchangers do not have to be small. Alfa Laval says its new T50 model is the largest plate exchanger it has ever built....

UK and International Plant Cost Indices.
November 17, 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...