Solvay taps into the fast growing Chinese epichlorohydrin market: The company's affiliate Vinythai plans the construction of a new facility for bio–based epichlorohydrin in Taixing, PR China. China's epichlorohydrin market is expected to grow on average by 8% per year, becoming the largest single market in the world, analysts believe.

Speciality chemicals company Lanxess announced investments of € 30 million in a tire rubber facility at Port Jérôme, France until 2015. The site, that celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2012 shall undergo productivity and energy efficiency upgrades, the company said.

With MTP (Module Type Package) and NOA (Namur Open Architecture), Namur has launched important game changers in process automation. While the complexity of the topics in the context of the digitization challenges continues to increase, the users need simple solutions. Are sensors the key or the driver for successful digitization? This was discussed under the motto “Field Instruments Supporting Digital Transformation” at the annual users meeting of process automation technology.

The project is claimed to be one of the largest oil and gas projects in the world and Fluor’s JV firm is the brain behind the creation of the plant design. The new 3D plant model will enable project engineers from across the globe to see real-time developments in the design.

The founders of Nanoscribe developed a revolutionary high-precision 3D printing method at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and quickly become the market leaders in their field. Now, the company won the Baden-Württemberg state prize for young companies.

Under the terms of the contract, Technip FMC will be in charge of addressing debottlenecks of Midor’s existing units and will also be responsible for the delivery of new units.

Boehringer Ingelheim has completed the expansion of its biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Fremont, California. With a two-year investment totaling $ 228 million, the research-driven pharmaceutical company is creating 300 new jobs and increasing its worldwide bioreactor capacity to 290,000 liters.

A state–of–the–art product portfolio and an efficient and reliable production are basic requirements for success on the highly competitive process component market. Sometimes, nevertheless, off–the–shelf solutions are not enough – The trend is to develop complex and customised systems for the customer, from simple machinery to complex turnkey solutions...

There is currently a lot of talk about mega-trends, such as globalisation. Our look at the trends will not centre on these headline issues. Read here what is on the mind of the process industry at this year’s ACHEMA.

With this new catalyst, the institute has proven that catalysts found on earth that are abundant, cheap, and benign metals such as iron or manganese can be considered as possible alternatives for challenging reduction reactions.