The global chemical company OQ Chemicals has lifted its force majeure declaration for all products from its German plants in Oberhausen and Marl.

PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the ‘Top 10 plant engineering projects of May 2024’ from all over the world. Right from Carbios holding a groundbreaking ceremony for the world's first pet biorecycling plant to the world’s largest direct air capture plant commencing operations in Iceland, find out all the projects making headlines here.

With an aim to carry out sustainable operations, many industries are now increasingly making use of recycled or treated water which are sourced from wastewater treatment plants instead of using limited fresh water resources. New areas of interest such as green hydrogen production is also following the same route. Smart technologies are also being explored to optimize water usage, minimize wastage and even tap innovative ways to obtain water for industrial operations.

Organosulfur skeletons are crucial in many fields, including pharmaceuticals and electronics. Synthesizing organosulfur skeletons requires o-bromobenzenethiols. However, conventional methods face challenges due to quick oxidation and formation of highly reactive intermediates. In a new study, researchers from Japan developed a new method for synthesizing o-bromobenzenethiols from aryne intermediates via bromothiolation. This method can pave the way for the synthesis of new organosulfur compounds with applications in diverse fields.

Rio Tinto has plans to establish an R&D facility in Western Australia to further assess the effectiveness of its low-carbon ironmaking process. The company has plans to invest 143 million dollars for the project.

Spread across 70,000 sq. ft, Aurigene’s new biologics facility in Hyderabad is designed to serve customers with process & analytical development and small-scale manufacturing of antibodies and other recombinant proteins for preclinical and early phase clinical requirements.

This year, Pfeiffer Vacuum will focus on vacuum generation in potentially explosive environments and on the evacuation of explosive gases at Achema 2024. For this, it will showcase its Okta Atex Roots pumps and Hiscroll Atex scroll pumps.

Coesia will present innovative solutions in pharmaceutical manufacturing at Achema 2024. The company will be represented by Enflex, Flexlink, GF, Hapa, MGS and Norden.

Neste has successfully completed a major turnaround at its Porvoo refinery in Finland. The company completed a large number of regulatory inspections, maintenance works of some 5,000 equipment, as well as asset improvement initiatives at the refinery. The total investment for the turnaround was approximately 390 million euros.

At the opening ceremony of Achema, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Dr. Robert Habeck, along with other leaders from the financial sector, the chemical industry and suppliers offered insights about how the process industry is positioning itself within new global framework conditions and wrapped up the session by suggesting that international cooperation is the need of the hour in order to overcome the many challenges faced by the process industry.