Ineos Enterprises has plans to acquire Ashta Chemicals from Bigshire Mexico. The deal will also include a 100 ktpa potassium hydroxide/65 ktpa Chlorine plant which is located close to the Ineos pigments facility in Ashtabula, Ohio, USA.

Fulcrum Bioenergy’s Sierra biofuels plant in the USA has commenced operations and is processing waste feedstock to produce high-quality hydrocarbon synthetic gas which proves beneficial for sustainable fuel production.

Under a MOU signed between both the parties, Airbus and Lanzajet will work together to develop sustainable aviation fuel facilities that will make use of Lanzajet’s Alcohol-to-Jet technology to produce SAF.

BASF has partnered with Nanotech Energy to develop lithium-ion in North America with locally recycled content and low CO2 footprint. BASF will produce cathode active materials from recycled metals in Battle Creek, Michigan which will be used to produce lithium-ion battery cells.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has regularly hit the headlines: in 2016, it beats Grandmaster Lee Sedol in playing Go, and in 2018, the auction house Christie's auctioned off the first artwork created by artificial intelligence, "Portrait of Edmond de Belamy", for over 400,000 dollars. And today the AI-based text generator GPT-3 from the research laboratory Open AI, co-founded by Elon Musk, is said to flood the web with fake news through machine-generated posts but what about industrial applications of artificial intelligence? What are the opportunities and challenges of AI in the process industry?

KBR has joined hands with Odfjell, Equinor and Wärtsilä to carry out a study for the development of a green ammonia-based power system for Odfjell’s semi-submersible drilling unit. The company will evaluate the conversion of the diesel generators on board drilling units to ammonia-fueled generators.

With chemical and chemical processing industries aiming to forge ahead in their automation and digitalization drive to develop their respective ‘Factory of the future’ or ‘Smart factory’, one thing is certain – it can’t be done without the use of robots at least for the time being. The concept of robots is not new but they have been transformed time and again to meet the challenges of today’s industrial plants especially with regard to plant inspection as well as maintenance and it won’t be wrong to term this phase as the ‘return and rise of robots.’

Total Energies and Holcim have collaborated together to study various energies and technologies for developing an efficient CCUS system which will help to decarbonize Holcim’s entire cement plant in Belgium. The partnership will also aim at establishing renewable projects to power an electrolyzer in order to generate green hydrogen for e-fuels as well as to power Holcim’s new oxyfuel kiln.

With an aim to deliver carbon capture solutions to large-scale industrial emitters within the U.S. Gulf Coast area, Honeywell has joined hands with Enlink Midstream. Honeywell’s carbon capture technology will complement Enlink's pipeline infrastructure and projected sequestration connections to achieve the goal.

Shell has recently reported in its Energy Transition Progress Report 2022 that it has once again met its climate targets and has made progress towards becoming a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050.