Emerson Exchange 365

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Digital Transformation in the Chemical Processing Industries

Jim Cahill

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…
- 15 Jun 2017
Gaining Insights in Addressing Corrosion and Flaring Challenges

Jim Cahill

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 sure to catch several…
- 15 Mar 2017
Gaining Insights in Addressing Corrosion and Flaring Challenges

Jim Cahill

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 sure to catch several…
- 15 Mar 2017
Gaining Insights in Addressing Corrosion and Flaring Challenges

Jim Cahill

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 sure to catch several…
- 15 Mar 2017
Gaining Insights in Addressing Corrosion and Flaring Challenges

Jim Cahill

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 sure to catch several…
- 15 Mar 2017
Optimizing Distillation for Increased Methanol Capacity

Jim Cahill

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 costs, physical size, availability of materials, etc. In designing the distillation section, for example, the licensor did a calculation of how many theoretical trays were needed…
- 26 Sep 2016
Optimizing Distillation for Increased Methanol Capacity

Jim Cahill

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 costs, physical size, availability of materials, etc. In designing the distillation section, for example, the licensor did a calculation of how many theoretical trays were needed…
- 26 Sep 2016
Optimizing Distillation for Increased Methanol Capacity

Jim Cahill

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 costs, physical size, availability of materials, etc. In designing the distillation section, for example, the licensor did a calculation of how many theoretical trays were…
- 26 Sep 2016
Avoiding Corrosion while Increasing Urea Production

Jim Cahill

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…
- 18 Aug 2016
Avoiding Corrosion while Increasing Urea Production

Jim Cahill

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…
- 18 Aug 2016
Avoiding Corrosion while Increasing Urea Production

Jim Cahill

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…
- 18 Aug 2016
Optimizing the Ammonia Production Process

Jim Cahill

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 increased…
- 10 Aug 2016
Optimizing the Ammonia Production Process

Jim Cahill

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 increased…
- 10 Aug 2016
Urea Production Automation Challenges

Jim Cahill

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 producers must balance throughput with efficiency and the quality of the urea produced. In a new whitepaper, 4 Solutions for Urea Automation Challenges , Emerson’s James…
- 5 Jul 2016
Urea Production Automation Challenges

Jim Cahill

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 producers must balance throughput with efficiency and the quality of the urea produced. James Gremillion In a new whitepaper, 4 Solutions for Urea Automation Challenges…
- 5 Jul 2016
Opportunities in the Petrochemical Industry

Jim Cahill

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 be using these hashtags…
- 7 Jun 2016
Opportunities in the Petrochemical Industry

Jim Cahill

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 be using these hashtags…
- 7 Jun 2016
Outlook for Chemical and Specialty Chemical Manufacturers

Jim Cahill

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 producers…
- 3 Mar 2015
Solving Thermal Oxidizer Interacting Loops

Jim Cahill

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 containing…
- 2 Dec 2014
Improving Energy Efficiency in Thermal Oxidizers

Jim Cahill

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.…
- 12 Nov 2014
Solving Reactor Water Drum Level Problems

Jim Cahill

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...
- 15 Aug 2014
Optimizing Ethylene Furnace Operations on Low-Cost Ethane Feedstock

Jim Cahill

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 faced...
- 27 Mar 2014
With Smart Process Distillation, James Beall Finds Hidden Savings for Gulf Coast Plastics Plant

Jim Cahill

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 figure out...
- 19 Sep 2013
An Agrichem Blog: The 100th Birthday of the Ammonia Plant

jamesgremillion

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 helium…
- 19 Aug 2013
An Agrichem Blog: Haldor Topsoe

jamesgremillion

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…
- 1 Jun 2013