Ensuring the design team and stakeholders work together is crucial at the start on any large capital project. Collaboration is essential when it comes to working with many different groups, partners, subcontractors, and inter-departmental personnel, as they work with multiple information sources and make numerous design changes as part of the review process. Failure in any of these work processes can result in costly mistakes once handover is complete as the project moves into construction – and even more so as it moves into operations.

Achema back as a live event for the first time since it was postponed— After some back and forth, the leading trade fair for the process industry opens its doors in August. Despite great anticipation for the upcoming meeting, expectations are mixed. Achema between the Ukraine war and the fading pandemic.

With sales of more than 2 trillion euros (2.26 trillion dollars; 2020), China is by far the largest chemical producer in the world. Even though growth has slowed from an average of 8.7 to 5.7 percent in recent years, this figure is still very impressive by global standards. This is also true for investments in property, plant and equipment, which amounted to 115 billion euros in 2020. Based on our China Market Insider series, we have summarized some interesting market trends and developments in China's chemical industry this year.

Climate protection can open up new markets for the chemical industry in China on a large scale in the coming decade. This also applies to European companies. As the chemical newspaper Zhongguo Huagong Xinxi Zhoukan reports, additional market demand of around 1.4 trillion Chinese yuan (about 222 billion dollars) will arise for several specific specialty chemicals needed for climate change.

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.

Leaders from the process automation industry came together at the recently organized Namur meeting which was once again held as a virtual event this year. MTP, NOA, APL, and robots were the core topics discussed at the meeting. PROCESS has summarized the exciting two-day event.

Digital twins ensure competitiveness. This is the experience of numerous users in the process industry who are working with a solution developed by Siemens and Bentley Systems. Bart Moors from Siemens and Alistair Stubbs from Bentley Systems describe what makes this platform unique and, furthermore, how they can help customers to advance their digital maturity.

The cost of natural gas for industrial heating processes, electric power and HVAC is rising while emissions controls also grow more stringent. Engineers must adapt and learn how to better control the calorific value of their gas feeds to optimize industrial heating processes. Controlling your burn reduces consumption, costs and emissions.

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?

Stand in many an oil field and you will feel yourself transported back to the early 1970s. Despite past price crises and predictions of “peak oil”, little has changed in terms of measurement data acquisition, monitoring, and automation. Employees travel long distances every day; their most important tools are pen and clipboard. Yet efficiency can be significantly increased simply by equipping the measuring points with radio systems. This is the first step on the road to the digital oilfield, at the end of which lies greater added value. The principle of Open Process Automation provides future-proofing.