PROCESS Worldwide brings to you the ‘Top 10 plant engineering projects of October 2023’ from all over the world. Right from Solvay developing an electric furnace at its silica plant in France to Exxonmobil’s technology being selected for a demonstration plant in the Neom project, find out all the projects making headlines here.

Trinseo’s new pilot facility was inaugurated in April in which the dissolution technology helps to extract 100 % recycled PC for use in new materials. Jo-Annes de Bat, Provincial Executive of the Netherlands was the guest of honor at the inauguration ceremony.

Climate protection can open up new markets for the chemical industry in China on a large scale in the coming decade. This also applies to European companies. As the chemical newspaper Zhongguo Huagong Xinxi Zhoukan reports, additional market demand of around 1.4 trillion Chinese yuan (about 222 billion dollars) will arise for several specific specialty chemicals needed for climate change.

Infinity Recycling, Invest-NL and Lyondell Basell have invested 13 million Euros to support the commercialization of Pryme’s pyrolysis process which is used to convert waste plastic into valuable products on an industrial scale.

Mitsui Chemicals’ Mitsui Phenols Singapore has been taken over by Ineos Phenol as its assets are in line with the company’s existing asset portfolio. The deal also provides integration opportunities with Ineos’ manufacturing sites in Germany, Belgium and the U.S.

Fujian Zhongjing Petrochemical Group has selected Johnson Matthey’s latest butanediol technology to produce 600,000 metric tonnes of bio-degradable plastics annually. This plastic can be used in compostable packaging and decomposes.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ørsted and Skovgaard Energy will work together to develop a large-scale Power-to-X facility in Denmark. The project’s first phase is expected to deliver an electrolysis capacity of 150 MW and will be powered by onshore wind and solar PV.

Eni and Enel Green Power have plans to develop two green hydrogen projects in Italy under its joint venture South Italy Green Hydrogen. The European Commission has approved a funding of 5.2 billion euros under its Ipcei Hy2use fund for the development of both the projects.

Mercury Renewables has selected Black & Veatch to support the development of one of Ireland’s first co-located onshore wind farm and hydrogen electrolysis plants. Initially, Black & Veatch will carry out a feasibility study of the project and later on develop an outline design for the facility.

A wealth of opportunities are currently opening up for digitalising existing process plants and making them ready for the era of the industrial Internet of Things. It is indisputable that this offers new possibilities, for example through predictive maintenance, improved connectivity and new findings acquired from big data. This is true in theory, at least. But in practice, the path to the digital future can sometimes be laborious, expensive, or both — especially for installations in hazardous areas. Remote I/O helps with this shift while saving money.