German chemicals behemoth BASF has been the victim of scam accounts and billing frauds: Four employees of the chemical company are said to have cooperated with external firms to settle services that were never provided. This caused damage in the tens of millions.

Digitalization and Industry 4.0 have arrived in the process industry — a lot more quickly and with far greater penetration than some would have believed of this generally conservative, safety-minded sector. It was precisely the process automation experts for the large chemical companies who recognized the potential opportunities at an early stage, and drove forward the required developments, particularly the necessary standardization. Siemens is amongst the pace-setters on the supplier side. In the course of this progression, the supplier of automation and electrification engineering has become a software giant able to offer its customers a digital solution for practically every challenge.

The Serum Institute of India, a leading biotech company and vaccine manufacturer in the country has a vision – to continually increase the production of affordable and highquality vaccines. Bosch Packaging Technology helps the company achieve this goal by providing best-inclass machinery to successfully manufacture life-saving medication.

Siemens is further supplementing its process industry digitalization portfolio. Eckard Eberle, CEO Process Automation at Siemens Digital Industries, explains why openness and cross-sectoral standards continue to be essential to this and yet a one-stop-shop brings benefits.

In order to meet rising hygiene standards as well as retain the freshness of food products for a longer period, the food packaging sector is always on the look-out for new packaging materials and technologies. Today, multi-layer films are preferred over single-layer packaging due to several factors. Read on to know more…

Under the terms of the MOU, Lygos will provide its unique technology – LP1 Ultra Yeast Platform and Carbon Sequestration Superhighway to Praj in order to create bioplastics known as polylactic acid.

Dystar continues its transformation process, moving production operations from Germany to Asia. With a further commitment on the Asian markets, the company expects to grow during a potentially unstable 2012.

JSC Technoleasing has selected Johnson Matthey’s combined reforming methanol and Advanced Series Loop technology for its new Amur Oblast facility in Russia. The technology aims to enhance natural gas efficiency of the 3,000 mtpd methanol plant.

Tata Chemicals recently opened its state-of-the-art Innovation Centre in Pune. This center will act as the company's technology and innovation hub to support Tata Chemical’s growth in various sectors such as wellness foods, agriculture, chemistry solutions, the company states.

Bestgrand Chemical Group has announced the successful start-up of its wet gas sulfuric acid (WSA) plant — the world’s largest with a production capacity of 300,000 tons of sulfuric acid per year. The plant will treat 131,000 tons of acid gas over-the-fence per year from the neighboring world-scale refinery plant operated by a joint venture between CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation) and Shell in Huizhou City, China.