PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the ‘Top 10 plant engineering projects of February 2022’ from all over the world. Right from China’s first megaton CCUS project to developing Europe’s first lithium refinery, find out all the projects making headlines here.

The European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) has recently published its third progress report on the implementation of its Reach Dossier Improvement Action Plan. With this report, the companies involved in the action plan aim to update and enhance the data in ‘Reach’ registration dossiers.

Under the new organizational structure, Novartis will aim to establish itself as a focused medicines company. The company’s pharmaceuticals and oncology business units will be merged into an Innovative Medicines business with separate US and International commercial organizations. Other divisions such as corporate strategy, R&D portfolio and business development will also be combined to further strengthen the pipeline with high-value medicines. Changes to its Executive Committee have also been announced.

In a field test, a chemical plant in Japan ran autonomously for 35 days with the assistance of an artificial intelligence (AI) solution developed by Yokogawa and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. The next-generation control technology is capable of taking into account numerous factors such as quality, yield, energy saving, and sudden disturbances.

Edwards has unveiled its intelligent vacuum pump controller with cloud connectivity and control for industrial vacuum pumps and systems. A one-stop solution, the vacuum controller provides all the necessary pump information and metrics in one place.

The Pyrochem Project aims to process 1 million tons of waste plastic into feedstock for the chemical industry from 2030 onwards. With this project, the project partners intend to reduce 1.7 million tons of CO2-eq annually and save 550 kilotons of petroleum.

Under a partnership between KBR and Exxonmobil Catalysts and Licensing, both the companies will work together towards significant advancements to the propane dehydrogenation technology. Exxonmobil's new proprietary catalyst technology when combined with KBR's proprietary K-Pro Propane Dehydrogenation technology is able to convert propane into propylene leading to low energy consumption and cost savings.

3D printed medicines are slowly becoming popular due to its many advantages not only for the end consumer but also for pharmaceutical companies. Numerous firms are also exploring the additive manufacturing technology to reduce costs as well as create on-demand drugs.

Dow and Plastogaz will work together to simplify the process of converting plastic waste-to-feedstock in order to develop new virgin plastics. The new process aims to increase the carbon-yields of advanced recycling and to minimize the energy needs for advanced recycling, thus reducing its CO2 footprint.

Maire Tecnimont has been awarded an EPCM contract by a major chemical producer for developing a blue ammonia plant in the USA. The project is expected to be completed by 2025.