In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved more biologic new molecular entities as compared to the previous years. In this background, the leading data and analytics company Global Data also found that the sponsors increased the outsourcing of these biologics’ active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing.

Orlen Unipetrol has recently commissioned a pyrolytic testing unit for processing waste-plastics at its chemical plant in Litvínov, Czech Republic. With this move, the company intends to expand the conventional fuel and plastic production from fossil fuels with new sources that will lead to the decarbonization of the country.

The latest recruitment news from the process industry starts with a bang. In addition, there are some rotational changes and strategic new hires to report. PROCESS worldwide summarises the news from the executive floors for you.

Chevron Phillips Chemical announced plans to expand its alpha olefins business with a second world-scale unit to produce on-purpose 1-hexene. Expected capacity for the new unit is 266 KTA with targeted startup in 2023 and its location will be Old Ocean, Texas, near the company’s Sweeny facility. At its peak, the project anticipates supporting more than 600 construction jobs and 50-plus full-time positions.

A Thai research team has enlisted the help of robots to help develop a vaccine to protect against covid-19.As the world gears up to fight the pandemic, rapid testing of vaccines is vital to ensure that populations can swiftly achieve immunity. Yet this testing must also be performed accurately to get the correct results and safely to ensure laboratory staff are not exposed to risk.

PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the most recent engineering projects from across the globe. Read on to know more…

Despite challenges brought about by the pandemic, products featuring technology from Profibus & Profinet International (PI) have been very well accepted by users. With the total number of PI products so far installed at plants has exceeded 104 million, an impressive threshold has been crossed.

In September 2020, the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI) was founded by eleven prominent companies from six countries under the leadership of the nova-Institute. The initiative aims to support and speed up the transition from fossil carbon to renewable carbon for all organic chemicals and materials.

Trinseo has partnered with ETB for the development of purified bio-based 1,3-butadiene. Both the companies also plan to conduct a feasibility study for the construction of a dedicated bio-based 1,3-butadiene pilot plant in Europe which will aim to achieve a purity target of 99.7 %.

Honeywell UOP has introduced a new process which is capable of converting 100 % naphtha into a cleaner-burning Euro-V gasoline. The integration of the new UOP Isomex process with the Penex and CCR Platforming technologies produces high-octane gasoline with lower emissions.