Mike Spear

Today’s plants come ready equipped with their own team of doctors in the shape of the many diagnostic and monitoring systems incorporated into instrumentation and other process...

As pressure rises on plants to improve productivity and equipment reliability levels, seals and gaskets are being called upon to provide even better performance. Their challenge...

Many companies decide not to build up certain capabilities in-house mainly because they don’t have sufficient regular demand for them. Gamma scanning of distillation columns is...

More attention to mercury and increased acceptance of predictive approaches is emerging. Such monitoring not only can keep plants on the right side of regulators but also can ...

More and more companies are placing greater emphasis on maintenance and seeking help from vendors to boost the effectiveness of their efforts, as some recent major investment ...

More attention to steam systems and trap monitoring provides big benefits. At most chemical plants, plant management and operators face increasing pressures to improve the energy...

Increasing interest will translate into far more monitoring applications. The worldwide market for wireless technology will grow 26% annually over the next few years, forecasts...

Developments target economics, not just environmental benefits. While pollution prevention was the original goal of green chemistry, today’s efforts promise to have a substantial...

End-of-life and other product stewardship initiatives will impact chemical plants. An agreement to lessen the environmental impact of chemicals production will have global ramifications...

The benefits of using pipeline simulation tools at the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) level, rather than running simulations just on the process flow diagram, can...

Nanotechnology is grabbing headlines these days and the growing prospects of its use is spurring increasing attention to safety issues. This article examines the worldwide reaction...

Separation processes often account for more than 50 percent of a chemical company's operating costs. Read how membranes and other non-thermal technologies poised to win a wider...

There are more and more funcationalities being added to your most trusted instrumentation. These established technologies have expand their reach and performance.

Chemical manufacturers are using a range of strategies to cope with rising power costs. They are relying more on pooling and cogeneration.

The constant-speed approach to AC motors made a lot of sense when energy was cheap and drives technology was in its infancy. With their latest advances, adjustable speed drives...