Plant Operations

Process plants often use evaporative cooling towers to reject heat to the atmosphere.This article explains the basics of cooling tower operation.

Centrifugal pumps play a central role in chemical processing. Proper pump operation and maintenance can improve a facility's productivity, reduce downtime, and trim costs.

Does your system suffer from plugging? Bottlenecking? Abrasion? Poor venting? Degraded product? Here are remedies.

Understand some of the accident scenarios that result in dust explosions, and follow these suggestions for preventing them.

Seven years ago, I wrote a column for another publica­ tion entitled “The U.S. Chemical Industry: R.I.P.” This pillar of American economic strength, which a few years earlier was the leading exporter among U.S. manufac­turing sectors (with net exports of $15–20 billion annually), was shriveling due in large part to policy blunders and regula­tory mistakes.

Try these practical ways to boost capacity, increase product quality or reduce cycle time in batch and continuous systems.

Continuous dryers are accurately and easily evaluated using laboratory-scale simulators combined with the specific drying rate approach.

This method, based on hydraulic equations in the open literature, calculates vapor/liquid distribution in four-pass trays to correctly predict flooding and efficiency.

By understanding solids' properties and what promotes flow, problems faced in the plant can be remedied

Increase productivity and reduce variable costs by following this strategy for enhancing the performance of a fixed-bed catalyst.