Marred by a turbulent past, foreign competition and a not-so-favourable public persona, the domestic chemical industry has, nonetheless, accomplished its fair share of growth and development. A look at some of the finer details of this journey.

Branching into various industries, blockchain is now strongly making its presence felt in the oil and gas as well as the chemical process industries. PROCESS brings you the many plus points of this dynamic technology in chemical process industries.

Successful turnaround projects underline the importance of the maintenance sector for Bilfinger. The industrial service provider has become a specialist for the difficult task, with contracts worth a double digit million Euros in the books for winter 2014.

The process of choosing appropriate compressed air systems for pharmaceutical applications comprises a number of selection criteria, all of which contribute immensely to air quality and equipment performance.

Digitalization in process automation was not a complete surprise, according to CTO Roland Bent, Phoenix Contact. But “it was not necessarily the obvious, logical conclusion of what happened in the years before.” He sees great potential in new approaches like NOA (Namur Open Architecture) and MTP (Module Type Package) — also for his own company.

Ever since the 1920s, Phoenix Contact has been driven by one thing: the pursuit of “better.” Already in its early years, the company demonstrated with its first series terminal block, the so-called RWE terminal block, that it works closely with its customers on all new developments. Then and today, it has always been about connectivity: from the field, through mapping and on to connectivity to the process control level. And time and time again, Phoenix Contact products have spearheaded new technology trends.

Powerful, intuitively operated documentation tool proves its usefulness in practice — Documenting the actual as-built status of a large process plant is a Herculean task. It is not unusual for the change to the plant itself to take less time than the subsequent changes in the documentation. With myriads of copies and handwritten notes, important information is easily ge lost. For all these reasons, BASF in Ludwigshafen decided on the successive installation of an electronic documentation system — and the results speak for themselves …

Gardner Denver Thomas has once again expanded the product platforms of the “Jade” miniature diaphragm pumps. The model series Jade 1410 and 1420 are now equipped with electronically commutated motors (BLDC). This provides unique advantages for the user, the company says.

Cole-Parmer’s industry exclusive technology, Masterflex Live Cloud-enabled pumps, brings the Internet of Things (IoT) to pump applications, providing pump operators with the ability to remotely control and monitor pumps via the internet — without the need to be onsite. This feature has now been enhanced with 21 CFR Part 11 and EU Annex 11 compliance, so that robust security, data control, and electronic records are possible with low-cost subscription.

The age of digital engineering has just began: As operation, information and technology are about to merge, engineering enters a new era — Digital engineering models and actual operational data don’t have much in common — or have they? The Internet of Things and intelligent field devices are about to usher in a new era, in which the boundaries between cyberspace and on-site production blur. It is up to us to harness the technological change and reap its benefits.