Saudi Aramco and Sinopec have entered into a MOU to collaborate on multiple areas such as assessing refining and petrochemical integration opportunities; engineering, procurement and construction; oilfield services, upstream and downstream technologies as well as collaboration across carbon capture and hydrogen processes.

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.

The Hiscroll series from Pfeiffer Vacuum consists of three dry and hermetically sealed scroll pumps with a nominal pumping speed of 6 – 20 m³/h. These vacuum pumps are characterized not only by their high performance when evacuating against atmosphere but also by their high energy efficiency that reduces their carbon footprint, the company states.

Evonik has plans to expand its production capacity of Metamino (DL-methionine) on Jurong Island, Singapore, by 40,000 metric tons to around 340,000 metric tons annually. For this, the project will require technological development which will help in process optimization, thus, improving the carbon footprint of Metamino produced in Singapore by six percent.

Power-to-X is on everyone’s lips: as energy storage, alternatives to battery-electric mobility or basic raw materials for industrial processes, the conversion of green electricity into material form is a cornerstone of all defossilization strategies. But how realistic is the vision of fuel from the socket? A test plant in Lower Bavaria, Germany, shows that the necessary technologies have long been in the starting blocks.

GS Caltex has chosen KBR’s plastics recycling technology for its 50 kTA unit which aims to convert waste plastics into raw materials for developing new plastics. With this project, the company aims to establish a greener facility in South Korea.

Kemira has recently joined the Renewable Carbon Initiative which focuses on speeding up the transition from fossil carbon to renewable carbon for all organic chemicals and materials. By associating with the initiative, Kemira aims at advancing innovative sustainability practices with a focus on promoting circularity and a bio-based economy.

In the past, “more is better” often applied to process optimization – companies sometimes invested considerable effort to keep all processes in the optimal range and suppress every disturbance. But not all anomalies in processes are equally relevant to the profitability of a plant. With artificial intelligence (AI) methods, events can now be directly evaluated for their business relevance, thus opening up new possibilities for companies in the economic optimization of processes.

Under a MOU signed between both the parties, Proman and Mitsubishi Corporation have plans to explore the development of a world-scale ultra-low carbon ammonia facility in Lake Charles, USA. The unit is expected to produce 1.2 million tonnes per year of clean ammonia.

The time-to-market has always been a concern for the pharmaceutical industry. But the development of a vaccine against covid-19 in just a few months and making it available within a year has left one speechless: How was/is that possible? What has the industry learned from this for the future? What can be adapted and what cannot? Insights from a web conference organized and hosted by PROCESS.