Process Engineering articles from September 2005

Process Engineering archives from September 2005

Green light for UK chemicals.
September 28, 2005... The UK chemicals industry has scored well in the Environment Agency's Spotlight report on Business' Environmental Performance, published last month. The report assessed how well industry manages its regulated sites in terms of waste...

#1Billion heads for NE.
September 28, 2005... A survey among members of the North East of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) has revealed that international banks and investors have committed #1billion of new investment in the region for current, recent and immediate future...

Parker ups bid for domnick hunter.
September 28, 2005... At the end of last month the US group Parker Hannifin raised its offer to buy the UK filtration and separation company domnick hunter. Parker's first approach at the beginning of August valued domnick hunter at #215.7million, an offer that...

Energy policy forges ahead.
September 28, 2005... The UK's energy strategy took five important steps forward over the past 12 months, according to the Energy White Paper Annual Report published last month. During the report period, a treaty has been signed with Norway that will facilitate...

World's largest peat-fired station.
September 28, 2005... The West Offaly Power Station at Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, has been officially opened by the Irish Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen TD. Foster Wheeler's Finnish subsidiary, Foster Wheeler Energia Oy, was the engineering,...

IN BRIEF: ABB REPORTS GOOD Q2.
September 28, 2005... ABB has reported higher orders, sales and profits in the second quarter of 2005 compared to the same quarter last year, resulting from continued growth in most markets and further progress in lifting operational efficiency. Earnings before...

IN BRIEF: INTERGRAPH IN CHINA.
September 28, 2005... Intergraph and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) have entered into a long term strategic relationship, which allows the refiner and petrochemical producer unlimited access to the majority of Intergraph's process engineering...

IN BRIEF: KVAERNER/BASF PARTNERSHIP.
September 28, 2005... Aker Kvaerner has signed a partnership agreement with BASF to provide detailed engineering services to its Antwerp, Belgium site, the largest BASF production facility after Ludwigshafen in Germany. Effective immediately, the deal is...

IN BRIEF: YORK HEADS WEST.
September 28, 2005... Heating, cooling and ventilating equipment manufacturer, York International, is to be acquired by the US company Johnson Controls in a deal valued at around $3.2billion. The two companies are market leaders in Europe and North America, and...

IN BRIEF: DRAEGER EXPANSION.
September 28, 2005... Draeger Safety has completed the second phase of a #3million expansion programme and opened a new Technical Centre at its Blyth, Northumberland site. The 3150m2 building incorporates one of only six Draeger Gas Detection Systems Centres in the...

IN BRIEF: IONIX GROUP ACQUIRES AV.
September 28, 2005... The noise condition monitoring consultancy, AV Technology, has been acquired by the Ionix Group. Formerly a subsidiary of Shell UK, AV now finds itself in the hands of two former Shell Services managers, Steve Motorshead and John Chappell, who...

Emerson acquires Solartron Mobrey.
September 28, 2005... Emerson has completed the acquisition of measurement specialist Solartron Mobrey, whose technologies include level, density, viscosity and flow computer products. The company was purchased in July from the Roxboro Group and will be renamed...

Federation members join weight watchers.
September 28, 2005... UK Weighing Federation members are facing a strict external audit to ensure they are following their own Code of Practice for the calibration of non-automatic weighing instruments (NAWI). Members' compliance with the Code is mandatory and its...

Contractors share fieldbus experiences.
September 28, 2005... Senior engineers from UK contractors recently attended the Fieldbus Foundation's first event aimed at this important sector. The London event at the Imperial War Museum was sponsored by leading suppliers of fieldbus equipment with support from...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Fuel cleaning catalyst.
September 28, 2005... Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new method for making catalysts to remove sulphur compounds from petrol and other fuels. Using a technique known as ultrasonic spray pyrolysis, the team has...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Nanovalve switches molecules.
September 28, 2005... Researchers from UCLA have developed what they claim to be the world's first 'nano-valve', a device which can control the flow of single molecules. Made from a molecular species known as rotaxane, the valve could be used in ultra-small...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Nanotube processing.
September 28, 2005... Nanotubes - minute carbon cylinders - are relatively easy to make, but very difficult to process. This is because they tend to tangle, and it's extremely difficult to persuade them to untangle. This has been a major bar to investigating...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Support grows for sonofusion.
September 28, 2005... Researchers from Purdue University in Indiana have obtained new evidence suggesting that tabletop nuclear fusion might be possible. The results show that the technique of sonofusion - where sound waves are used to produce tiny regions of...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: 'Shark skin' prevents fouling.
September 28, 2005... Anti-fouling coatings are essential for ships, oil and gas rigs and other marine structures, to prevent barnacles, mussels and other marine organisms colonising and damaging their surfaces. However, many anti- fouling paints contain substances...

TECHNOLOGY TODAY: Carbon monoxide - a life saver?
September 28, 2005... Carbon monoxide is well known to be a lethal gas, but it could have properties which means it can save lives. Research from the University of Michigan suggests that CO could be used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, and could also...

Process Technology: Clydeside congress.
September 28, 2005... The Seventh World Congress of Chemical Engineering, held recently at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow, aimed to give both academic and industrial chemical and process engineers a forum to exchange ideas. Stuart Nathan...

Process Technology: Electron tailoring tunes catalyst activities.
September 28, 2005... Making better, more effective catalysts with predictable and reliable properties is one of the most challenging interfaces of chemical engineering and pure chemistry. The emerging techniques of nanotechnology have great promise for designing...

Process Technology: Hydrogen from biomass for power.
September 28, 2005... Biomass has become an important raw material for many process sectors, especially power generation. Many types of biological materials, from agricultural waste products to chicken droppings, are used to fire power stations in various parts...

Process Technology: Extrusion and reaction.
September 28, 2005... 'Extruders,' says Hadj Benkreira of the School of Engineering, Design and Technology at the University of Bradford, 'are fantastic machines.' Often neglected in chemical engineering training, they are widely used as mixers, especially in the...

Process Technology: 'Ammonia economy' makes breakthrough.
September 28, 2005... We're now used to the phrase 'the hydrogen economy' being bandied around. According to Tue Johannessen, from the department of chemical engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, the hydrogen economy might not turn out to be based on...

Process Technology: Bio-catalyst solution for developing countries.
September 28, 2005... The industrialised nations are well-practised with dealing with environmental problems, although difficulties still occur. But in the developing world, the process sectors often face the same challenges, but with many more obstacles to handling...

Control & Automation: Fieldbus in the future.
September 28, 2005... It was a long time coming, but the era of fieldbus has well and truly arrived, as we show in the following article. Here, though, Gareth Johnston first assesses the current market situation and looks at future prospects for the fieldbus...

Control & Automation: A chinese cracker.
September 28, 2005... The world's largest installation of Foundation Fieldbus has recently gone into commercial operation at China's largest petrochemical complex. Mike Spear reports from Shanghai on this record-breaking project involving ten, centrally...

Control & Automation: A template for successful project management.
September 28, 2005... 'When you look at the complexity of building 10 units at one time, and asking all of them to start up in a short timeframe with minimum disruption, it's pretty amazing', says Jack Brinly, SECCO's deputy project director. 'At the beginning BP...

Control & Automation: Mega scale - and more to come.
September 28, 2005... SECCO came fully on stream not long after the BASF-YPC joint venture complex at Nanjing (see PE, July/August, p4). The latter is slightly smaller - its nine plants, based around a 600 000tpa ethylene cracker, output some 1.7million tpa of...

Plant Management: Modern bursting discs.
September 28, 2005... The changing face of today's process plant, with its demands for increased flexibility and reliability, is reflected in the design of bursting discs, those essential safety components found in the protection of most pressurised systems....

Plant Management: Detection and DSEAR.
September 28, 2005... The wide ranging Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations (DSEAR) call for best working practice to be used to minimise risk. Doug Longstaff makes the case for infrared gas detection systems as being among the best technology...

Plant Management: Training courses for maintenance engineers.
September 28, 2005... Pilz Automation Technology has developed a training course for maintenance engineers entitled 'Requirements for maintaining plant and machinery - safety-related controls'. The aim of the course is to give plant and machinery maintenance...

Plant Management: Portable personal protection monitors.
September 28, 2005... Casella CEL recently introduced four ATEX-approved, intrinsically safe, portable instruments for monitoring all aspects of occupational and environmental parameters. The VOC Pro is a handheld photoionisation monitor that can quickly and...

Plant Management: IS multifunctional calibrator.
September 28, 2005... The 725Ex is Fluke's first intrinsically safe, multifunction process calibrator for the test and calibration of practically all sensors and transmitters. Based on the successful Fluke 725, the handheld instrument is ATEX certified and can...

Plant Management: Software approach to safety studies.
September 28, 2005... Extending its SmartPlant range of plant design software products, Intergraph has announced SmartPlant Process Safety, a safety modelling application for carrying out and managing Hazop (hazard and operability) studies. The software package...

Plant Management: Pressure relief assured on site.
September 28, 2005... A joint agreement between Tyco Valves & Controls and Chevron Texaco for Tyco to manage the performance of pressure relief valves at the Pembroke refinery has resulted in all valves complying with health and safety regulations. Now renewed...

Plant Management: Protecting vertical motors.
September 28, 2005... Although designed for use in hazardous areas, electric motors used on air-cooled heat exchangers in the gas, refining and petrochemical industries are generally mounted vertically to drive the fans of the air coolers, and often in very...

Plant Management: Stand-alone gas detection.
September 28, 2005... Featuring full stand-alone functionality in a single weatherproof and corrosion resistant wall-mounted enclosure, the Det-Tronics DMC Series gas and flame controller provides continuous indication and alarm control of up to 36 programmable...

Plant Management: Simulation for safety systems.
September 28, 2005... Used in the design and modelling of safety systems and pressure relief networks, SimSci-Esscor's version 5.0 of its Visual Flow simulation program is said to provide a complete solution for industries such as oil and gas, refining,...

Plant Management: Taking the risk.
September 28, 2005... The ATEX and DSEAR regulations are now well-known to process operators, but their legal implications are often difficult to understand. Stuart Nathan reports on the problems posed by the legal small print that lies behind the technical...

The drive for market share.
September 28, 2005... ABB is planning to attack the market for ac drives within the food and beverage sector, with the goal of taking 25% of the #13million market by 2008. Currently standing at 4% market share, the company has launched what Steve Ruddell, general...

Driving down costs.
September 28, 2005... The benefits of installing variable speed drives as energy saving measures are now being realized by many within the food processing industry, but the market still has plenty of room for growth, according to a leading drives manufacturer ...

Single step mixing boosts production.
September 28, 2005... To improve an existing process for mixing fats into flours using its Vrieco-Nauta conical mixer, Hosokawa worked in conjunction with a major bakery customer to produce a single step process to reduce production times and boost productivity....

Low-speed mixer brings high-speed result.
September 28, 2005... Better mixing of its fruit 'smoothies' and yoghurt-based drinks has been reported by the Pepsico company Pete & Johnny (P&J) after retrofitting two Visco-Jet mixers from Orthos (Engineering) into existing tanks at its plant in Newark, Notts....

Rolling out the (tagged) barrels.
September 28, 2005... Some of the leading UK brewers, including Coors, Carlsberg and Scottish Courage, are using an RFID (radio frequency identification) tracking solution to keep tabs on their beer kegs. Developed by mobile asset management company Trenstar, the...

Cost-saving dosing.
September 28, 2005... Where a range of products have essentially the same basic ingredients other than colour, flavour, smell and so on, it is normal to manufacture a base material and then add the various ingredients that differentiate the finished products as...

Contherms talk turkey.
September 28, 2005... To comply with recent legislation that stipulates meat must be maintained below 4degC at all times during any process, turkey producer Bernard Matthews turned to Alfa Laval to upgrade its processing plant in Halesworth, Suffolk. The...

Dairy gains from burner upgrade on CIP system.
September 28, 2005... One of the largest in the country, the Arla Foods Dairy in north London has recently improved the energy efficiency of a key area of its production following the installation of a new CIP (cleaning in place) facility that features Lanemark...

The magnetic attraction of curry.
September 28, 2005... When award-winning food manufacturer The Authentic Curry Company wanted a new metal detector for its lines of frozen and chilled ready-meals, it approached Eriez Magnetics Europe for a bespoke solution. Already using an Eriez detector on...

PPMA SHOW: Continuing convergence.
September 28, 2005... 'THE integration of packaging and processing disciplines is increasingly important to buyers of packaging and processing machinery.' That was one of the major conclusions drawn from a survey carried out before last year's TOTAL Processing &...

Product News: Thermal imager for maintenance.
September 28, 2005... A thermal imager, from Fluke (UK) is specifically intended for infrared preventive and predictive maintenance at industrial and large commercial property sites. The rugged, portable Fluke Ti30 thermal imager is very straightforward to use,...

Product News: Smart positioner is fieldbus compatible.
September 28, 2005... The SP300 smart positioner from Spirax Sarco can be used in a wide variety of process automation environments and communicates with Hart, Profibus PA and Foundation Fieldbus protocols. It is also compatible with all pneumatic actuator types....

Product News: Pressure gauge and data logger.
September 28, 2005... Keller's new LEO Record incorporates a high accuracy pressure sensor, an LCD digital display and a sophisticated data logger, all in one battery-operated package. The pressure gauge is available in five standard pressure ranges and is...

Product News: Flowmeter cuts costs.
September 28, 2005... ABB claims the cost of electromagnetic flow measurement has been cut by up to 20% percent with the launch of its COPA-XL range. Designed as a low cost solution for standard flow metering applications, the COPA-XL features a lightweight...

Product News: Network-based control system meets demand from oil & gas.
September 28, 2005... Yokogawa's Stardom network-based control system has been upgraded with faster processing in redundant CPU configurations and new Hart communication-enabled modules. In Release 1.60 program processing with redundant CPU configurations is...

Product News: Close-coupled chemical pumps.
September 28, 2005... Johnson Pump has extended its environmentally friendly Combi range of seal-less pumps with a close-coupled magnetic drive model that offers users the benefits of leak-free liquids transfer and total product containment. The CombiMagBloc is...

Product News: Flowmeter has high turndown.
September 28, 2005... Traditional orifice-based DP flowmeters have only been able to maintain accuracy over a narrow 3:1 operating window. New technology from Emerson Process Management allows the latest Rosemount flowmeter to support up to 14:1 flow turndown with...

PLANT COST INDICES: UK and International Plant Cost Indices.
September 28, 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...