Emerson Exchange 365

Activity

Jim Cahill
- 15 Jun 2017
Digital Transformation in the Chemical Processing Industries

How are companies in the chemical processing industries looking at Industrial Internet of Things technologies to improve their operations? This question was the focus of a Chemical Engineering article, The Digital Transformation in the CPI . The article opens describing this digital transformation occurring: More and more, smart sensors and equipment that contain smart diagnostic features are being used in industry...
Jim Cahill
- 15 Mar 2017
Gaining Insights in Addressing Corrosion and Flaring Challenges

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) Annual Meeting is rapidly approaching—March 19-21 in San Antonio Texas. It is: …the world’s premier refining meeting, assembling key executives, decision-makers, and technical experts from refining businesses, technology providers, contracting and consulting firms, and equipment manufacturers around the world. If you’ll be attending, make...
Jim Cahill
- 26 Sep 2016
Optimizing Distillation for Increased Methanol Capacity

James Gremillion Author: James Gremillion When the process licensor designed your methanol plant, everything fit together to exactly produce the nameplate amount of methanol yearly. In the design there were necessary tradeoffs made because of cost...
Jim Cahill
- 18 Aug 2016
Avoiding Corrosion while Increasing Urea Production

James Gremillion Author: James Gremillion One of the key problems urea plants face is corrosion. The corrosion problem rests with one chemical produced by the urea process, ammonium carbamate . Ammonium carbamate is produced by reacting ammonia and carbon dioxide at high pressures (up to 200 bar ) in a special reactor. The urea reactor is a reactor vessel inside a protective shell. Should there be a leak in the...
Jim Cahill
- 10 Aug 2016
Optimizing the Ammonia Production Process

James Gremillion Author: James Gremillion One of the earliest applications of “computer control”, a now archaic term, on an ammonia plant was done in 1969 by Weissenfelder and Shah of Borden Chemical and IBM respectively. They were able to implement advanced control schemes in a computer that had proven to be too difficult to do in the pneumatic and electronic controllers of the time. Ammonia production...
Jim Cahill
- 5 Jul 2016
Urea Production Automation Challenges

Urea is a key component in nitrogen-rich fertilizers. Typically, the urea production process begins with hydrogen from natural gas and nitrogen in the air to produce ammonia. Urea is produced from the combination of ammonia and carbon dioxide. Urea p...
Jim Cahill
- 7 Jun 2016
Opportunities in the Petrochemical Industry

The petrochemical industry has benefitted from the huge supply increase of natural gas and liquids from shale gas here in the U.S. I’m in New Orleans for the next few days at the Petrochemical Engineering & Construction conference. Simultaneously the Gulf Coast Shutdowns & Turnarounds conference will be happening. Each conference has a Twitter hashtag you can follow at #PEC16 and #GCST16 . I’ll...
Jim Cahill
- 3 Mar 2015
Outlook for Chemical and Specialty Chemical Manufacturers

The post Outlook for Chemical and Specialty Chemical Manufacturers appeared first on the Emerson Process Experts blog. In the news every day we see the changes in economic activity in the upstream oil & gas exploration and production business caused by the significant drop in oil prices over the past several months. Peter Cox Director, Global Chemical Industry But what have been the implications for downstream...
Jim Cahill
- 2 Dec 2014
Solving Thermal Oxidizer Interacting Loops

Sonal Gilani Chemical Industry Program Manager Author: Sonal Gilani In an earlier post, Improving Energy Efficiency in Thermal Oxidizers , I highlighted how switching control loops from manual to automatic mode improved overall efficiency. James Beall Principal Process Control Consultant Emerson’s James Beall shared a second story on this thermal oxidizer equipment, which is used to destroy the waste gases...
Jim Cahill
- 12 Nov 2014
Improving Energy Efficiency in Thermal Oxidizers

Sonal Gilani Chemical Industry Program Manager Author: Sonal Gilani Thermal oxidizers are used to destroy the waste gases containing volatile organic compounds (VOC) and volatile hazardous air pollutants (HAP) by raising the temperature of the material above its auto ignition point in the presence of oxygen. The high temperature is maintained for sufficient time to complete combustion to carbon dioxide and water....
Jim Cahill
- 15 Aug 2014
Solving Reactor Water Drum Level Problems

Mark Brewer Senior Consultant Author: Mark Brewer I was asked by the engineers at a chemical manufacturing site here in the United Kingdom if I could have a quick look at a level control problem in a reactor coolant water drum. They have 2 very large ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 27 Mar 2014
Optimizing Ethylene Furnace Operations on Low-Cost Ethane Feedstock

For manufacturers with energy intensive processes, such as the petrochemical industry, the shale oil and gas boom in North America has led to lower feedstock costs. In this short, 1:34 video, Emerson’s James Beall describes some of the challenges ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 19 Sep 2013
With Smart Process Distillation, James Beall Finds Hidden Savings for Gulf Coast Plastics Plant

Hi there — it’s Chris Womack with another guest post, this time a tale about unexpected distillation savings. Last week, Emerson Consultant James Beall was working with a major U.S. plastics facility on the Texas Gulf Coast, helping the firm ...read more
jamesgremillion
- 19 Aug 2013
An Agrichem Blog: The 100th Birthday of the Ammonia Plant

One hundred years ago, next month, the first ammonia plant was built in Germany. Ready for a history lesson? Do you recall the airship (zeppelin) that burned in New Jersey in 1934? It was the Hindenburg and, although loss of life wasn't massive, it was, and still is, considered a major disaster. One of the questions I had as a youth was why the Germans stupidly used flammable hydrogen instead of inflammable...
jamesgremillion
- 1 Jun 2013
An Agrichem Blog: Haldor Topsoe

AN AGRICHEM BLOG: There are three primary licensors of ammonia processes. The third largest in Uhde in Germany, the second is KBR in Houston and the first is Haldor Topsoe in Denmark. To many of us the name of that last company brings up images of catalysts rather than ammonia plants and indeed that's where Haldor Topsoe made its name, beginning in 1940 when the company developed an innovative catalyst to speed...
jamesgremillion
- 11 Mar 2013
An Agrichem Blog - Nitrogen+Syngas Conference

I had the opportunity to attend the Nitrogen+Syngas conference in Berlin last week. Nitrogen+Syngas is a conference aimed at ammonia, urea, methanol and gas-to-liquids plants. One of the presenters, an executive from an Agrichemicals firm, spoke about the coming collapse of ammonia prices because of overbuilding. Right now, ammonia prices are at record highs and production costs in North America at record lows but,...
Jim Cahill
- 3 Oct 2012
On a Path to Four Zeros Operational Goals

The Industry Forums, scheduled for Monday, October 8, 1:00-2:30pm are always an informative part of the Emerson Exchange technical conference. You can find the industry forum lineup for next week’s conference here. Emerson’s Peter Cox is leading ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 21 Sep 2012
The Impact of Shale Gas on Olefins

With vast shale gas reserves, will China move from coal-to-chemicals processes to gas-to-chemicals processes going forward? Emerson’s Douglas Morris, a member of the alternative energy industry team explores this question in today’s guest ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 5 Jul 2012
New Generation Chemical Plants and Gas Chromatography

We’ve explored in several posts the impact shale gas is having on the U.S. oil and gas industry. A Processing magazine article, US chemical industry expansion will bring sophisticated technologies mainstream, explores its impact on the chemical ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 11 Apr 2012
AIChE Fuels and Petrochemicals Division Update

I caught up with Emerson’s Tim Olsen, Chair of the AIChE Fuels and Petrochemicals Division (F&PD), to get an update of the work of this division. For those unfamiliar with this group, the AIChE’s F&PD: …was established to further the ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 12 Jul 2011
Chemical Manufacturing Moving to Ends of the Spectrum

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), a global professional membership organization for people who have an interest in and experience in chemical engineering, triennially holds an event, Advances in Process Control 9 (APC 9). This year’s ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 21 Oct 2010
Functional Safety, a SIF-Based Approach, and Burner Management

Earlier this week, Emerson’s Chuck Miller and Mike Boudreaux were at the ChemInnovations 2010 conference in Houston, Texas. During this session, presenters talked about topics related to safety and security for instrumentation, automation, and control ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 2 Jul 2010
Efficiently Cracking Hydrocarbons in Ethylene Furnaces

A few weeks ago, I relayed a story from Emerson’s James Beall about a process of ongoing plant control performance improvements on which he’s been working with a process manufacturer. He said he had another great story about an ethylene furnace ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 2 Apr 2010
Reducing Distillation Column Energy Usage

I saw some startling facts in a presentation by Emerson’s Pete Sharpe, whom you may recall from many process optimization-related posts. This week he visited The Automation Group (TAG) office in Houston, to discuss distillation and fired heater ...read more
Jim Cahill
- 15 Jan 2010
Practical Ways to Save Energy in Your Plant

A recent Wall Street Journal article, U.S. Expects Steady Climb in Energy Prices opens: Energy prices are undergoing a long, slow march higher as major economies shake off the effects of last year’s recession, the U.S. Energy Information Administration ...read more