Any review of China’s chemical industry in 2021 is dominated by the two big issues the industry had to wrestle with: climate neutrality and Corona. These are the same issues that will dominate the year 2022. The industry as a whole in the People’s Republic is facing enormous challenges and changes — while at the same time there are great growth opportunities for certain sectors. However, the ongoing global epidemic, including in China, continues to create uncertainty.

In a new study, a research group at Arizona State University explores different approaches to catalysis, a chemical process that plays an essential role in biological reactions, as well as many industrial applications.

The increasingly relevant climate change coupled with the worldwide static increase in energy consumption by industry and private households requires us to rethink. New climate-neutral alternatives are being promoted more and more. One of the biggest hopes in the field of climate neutrality is hydrogen. But what is hydrogen? How can we produce it and where can it help us?

The future of process plant communication will be triggered by one key technology: Ethernet-APL. This end-to-end Ethernet solution will enable the free flow of information to and from the field and finally unleash the full potential of the visions behind Industry 4.0.

BASF is working with authorities in China to use more electricity from renewable sources at its chemical plants. The company has just announced a particularly ambitious goal for the new Verbund site in Zhanjiang, in the southern province of Guangdong: The first plants at the Verbund site, which is currently under construction, are to be operated entirely with renewable energies.

Electrostatic discharges create critical safety risks. This article provides examples in powder handling include pneumatic conveyors, big bag filling stations, and even silos where there is the danger of a conical pile discharge. Proper grounding techniques and the correct choice of big bags minimize the hazard.

Iluka Resources has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract to Fluor Corporation for developing its Eneabba project, a fully integrated rare earths refinery in Eneabba, Western Australia.

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.

In line with BASF’s ambitious climate targets announced earlier, the company has now come up with a detailed action plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 % by 2030 and aims to reach its goal of net zero emissions globally by 2050.

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.