The fresh facility is expected to handle an annual production capacity of approximately 400,000 tonnes of ADN and is claimed to be the first world-scale ADN plant to be built in a long time.

Chemical production in Leverkusen has one foot in the future. The F³ project was launched to ensure that the European chemical industry remains competitive in the world market. PROCESS took a look behind the scenes.

The F3 Factory Project was launched to enhance the competitiveness of the European chemical industry by developing alternative production concepts with fast and flexible production process. In an exclusive PROCESS interview, Dr. Thomas Bott, who is head of the Polymer Technology Unit in the Polymer Research organization at BASF and is involved in the F3 Project, explains how that approach might look like in practical application.

Italvacuum has manufactured vacuum pumps and vacuum dryers for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries since its establishment in 1939. The company supplies turnkey systems and bespoke equipment built to suit its customers’ needs.

Exact and reliable chemical analysis of feedstocks and products is very important in the manufacture of fine chemicals. Laboratory gas chromatographs are among the techniques traditionally used for this task, but pressure to improve process operations has brought change. Online process gas chromatography now provides significant benefits, as shown on a naphtha cracker.

Without the presence of “nothing,” literally nothing goes in many chemical processes. Whether for vaporization, sublimation, rectification, filtration, drying or conveying: Vacuum accelerates these process steps or is required to make them possible in the first place. Pfeiffer Vacuum has embodied a fascination for vacuum technology and its possibilities for more than 125 years.

Since 2003 when Bayer Technology Services has set up an independent legal entity evolving from the Bayer Group, the company was growing fast in the China market. Seven years later, on the occasion of this year’s AchemAsia, PROCESS spoke with Dr. Martin Franke, the new Managing Director of Bayer Technology and Engineering (Shanghai) — BTES in short — about the latest strategy.

1-Hexene is an important element that is used to produce high-strength polyethylene. The addition of the 1-Hexene unit is expected to expand alpha olefins production which is marketed under the brand name Alpha Plus.

On a major part of the pump breakdowns in the Chemical Process Industry, the causes are NPSH problems, gas admixtures in the transported fluids, dry running or operating a pump outside the permitted range.

Solvay has reached an agreement to sell its cellulose acetate tow business, Acetow, to private equity funds managed by Blackstone. The transaction is based on an enterprise value of about € 1 billion.