Geopolitical Shifts Create Opportunities in the Indian Chemical Industry
– Tojo Eapen, Chandan Kumar, Veena Pandey, Stanton Chase
Highlights the scenario of the Indian chemical industry, its strengths and the emerging Opportunities in the wake of global geo-political shifts.
Using Continuous Helical Flow to Reduce Fouling
– Dennis Long, Watlow
Fouling is a major problem in hydrocarbon and other chemical processing plants. This seriously affects the efficiency of many equipment particularly process heaters and heat exchangers. Continuous helical flow can address this problem to a great extent according to the article.
Hydrogen Economy
– Peter Muller Baum, VDMA
Increasing global greenhouse gases emissions, air pollution, increasing carbon load in the atmosphere are all leading to global warming and harmful effects of climate change. One of the major causes of this is the use of fossil fuels. Recent advances in hydrogen Manufacturing technologies, its storage and transportation have led to optimism of hydrogen replacing fossil fuels and thus the prospects of the entire global economy shifting to hydrogen in the near future, termed as hydrogen economy. This article reports on the need for hydrogen economy to become a reality. It also details the technology development
in Germany in this respect and the services the country can offer to the rest of the world.
Gas Based Economy: Role of Small LNG Units
– Dr MP Sukumaran Nair, Centre for Green Technology and Management
Natural Gas is a cleaner and cost competitive fuel. Since India is importing natural gas, the country should add enough number of terminals and increase the network of cross country pipelines. Natural gas need to be liquefied for transportation and then regasified at point of use. Small-scale LNG (SSLNG) units play an important role in increasing access to natural
gas to industrial clusters and other uses. Such small scale units have many advantages as outlined in the article.
A Sustainable Solution to Rising Fuel Prices
– Dr Pramod Chaudhari, Praj Industries India
Ethanol as a bio-product from sugarcane mainly and also from cassava, beetroot is a good alternative fuel to fossil fuels used in transportation with several advantages. Up to 20 percent mixing of ethanol is possible with petro-fuels, which will reduce the need to import crude to that extent to India. It will also reduce vehicular emissions and help in giving an impetus to the rural economy.
Chemingineering – Better Battery
– K Sahasranaman, Independent Consultant
With the anticipated shift from fossil fuels to fuels based on renewables like solar, wind, etc. the need for storage batteries has increased so as to store extra electricity generated. A lot of research is going on for newer generation of battery materials, electrodes, so as to increase the storage capability, the strength of output as well as making the battery
safer, cleaner and of longer duration. This column highlights many of these developments.
