Many industrial users are aware that variable-speed pumps, which automatically react to variations in demand, save a substantial amount of energy. It is less well known that pumps with electronic control enhance hygiene and improve process efficiency in the food and pharma industry.

Tomorrow's automation technology starts today. From field device daily routine through the chances of modularization up to data mining. Suspense and excitement continued on the second day of the Namur Annual General Meeting. Here, it was clearly palpable: The modernization tempo that users and operators in the process automation have jointly unleashed has increased significantly.

The goal of debottlenecking is to increase production capacity at an existing plant by making modifications to the equipment configuration or workflow. This is accomplished by eliminating bottlenecks that limit throughput. It can be an extremely profitable exercise for users, because in most cases debottlenecking adds extra capacity at a fraction of the cost of new build or expansion. PROCESS has put together some practical examples.

The aim of a new initiative of the German Catalysis Society (Gecats) is to unlock the enormous wealth of catalysis research data. In the recently published whitepaper "The Digitalization of Catalysis-Related Sciences", experts from academia and industry outline how "digital catalysis" can accelerate research processes and lead to new insights.

Thyssen Krupp has won a major order from the Egyptian chemical and fertilizer manufacturer NCIC (El Nasr Company for Intermediate Chemicals) for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a new fertilizer complex.

It sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie: A newly developed method produces customized molecules in the reactor according to a building plan – to some extent the 3D printer for chemistry. Although the “Chemputer” was actually supposed to synthesise customized medicine, British defence and aerospace multinational BAE has secured the method. Now drones are expected to be developed in the chemical bath.

Industry is under pressure to develop sustainable processing methods. With this in mind, the List kneader processor provides an alternative to the stirred-tank reactor for the production of polymers, allowing solvents to be eliminated from the reaction step. The kneader processor is also an alternative to the extruder for polymer devolatilization.

In addition to the proven connection to Foundation fieldbus H1, the FieldConnex temperature multi-input from Pepperl+Fuchs is now available for use with Profibus PA.

Lanxess announced the capacity expansion for the industrial chemical benzyl alcohol for the global market by around 30 %.

The artificial intelligence framework called ‘KRTI 4.0’ aims to achieve operational excellence for industry, utilities, transportation and infrastructure organisations. The framework makes use of advanced digital concepts such as AI, cognitive/machine learning and machine-to-machine (M2M) for industrial environments.