Chemical Processing Distilled

ICIS's Al Greenwood explains why ethane-fed commodity producers are cashing in while specialty chemical makers struggle to pass on higher costs. Read the full article.

This month, we cover the U.S. Chemical Safety Board's final report on the fatal Aug. 11 explosion at U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works, Argonne National Laboratory's progress on extracting lithium and other critical minerals from oilfield wastewater, and a new $100 million DOE initiative to train the next generation of critical-minerals workers.

From steam trap sprawl to a phenol plant that ignored 400x the recommended organic carbon limit, Brad Buecker walks through why condensate return demands real chemistry — and the tools (ion exchange, activated carbon, film-forming amines) that make it work.

Selecting the right Coriolis flow meter tube design goes beyond pressure, temperature and flow rate specs — it can reduce how much a plant spends on pumps and energy for the life of a pipeline. In this Solution Spotlight episode of Chemical Processing Distilled, Al Dhanji, chemical industry manager for the Americas at KROHNE, breaks down straight tube versus bent tube designs and how each handles high-viscosity products, slurries and aggressive chemicals. Using honey and water as examples, Dhanji explains why forcing fluid to change direction creates pressure drop, driving up pump size and energy costs. He also covers how tube design affects performance under entrained gas conditions.

Emerson's Michael Machuca explains how non-intrusive flow, temperature, corrosion and acoustic monitoring help chemical manufacturers boost safety, reliability and sustainability without cutting into pipes or halting production. Sponsored by Emerson

This month: fatal H2S release investigation findings, the final Conyers warehouse fire report, ACC's pushback on Brazil tariffs and a call for unified EPA-OSHA chemical safety rules and a reality check on AI in advanced process control.

In this episode Traci Purdum discusses Lynn Bergeson’s latest article " EPA, HHS Move Microplastics from Fringe Concern to Federal Priority " July 15, 2026 For a long time, microplastics were treated as a recycling problem or a marine litter problem. That changed this spring. On April 6, 2026, two federal agencies moved on the same day in ways that push microplastics squarely into the compliance conversation. Compliance Advisor columns.

In this episode of Chemical Processing's Distilled podcast, host Traci Purdum talks with Brad Buecker, senior technical consultant at Samco Technologies, about sodium softening — the workhorse treatment for industrial boiler makeup water. Buecker explains how hardness ions cause scale, why residual bicarbonate drives corrosive condensate return lines, and how to spot early warning signs of a poorly monitored softener. He shares real-world cases where bypassing softeners or delaying maintenance led to rapid boiler tube failures and six-figure losses, walks through the regeneration cycle and its common pitfalls, and compares sodium softening with reverse osmosis for higher-pressure systems.

Inconsistencies found across major references for common substances raise a harder question about what we assume we know and whether that's enough for design, operation and troubleshooting. This podcast is an In Case You Missed It of the column that appeared on our site July 1. You can read it here.

Two hundred and fifty years ago this week, a group of delegates in Philadelphia signed their names to the Declaration of Independence. Today, we are going to talk about how chemistry made it all possible.

Olin and Huntsman announce a $12.5 billion tie-up, Evonik cuts 3,200 jobs and BASF's CEO warns of an oil shock — while Covestro bets on biology to clean up aniline production.

This episode digs into three plant-floor challenges that look simple until physics intervenes—bulk solids handling, heat pump-driven distillation savings and a water pump's mysterious cycling problem traced back to Bernoulli's principle. Sources: " Bulk Solids and Powders: Flow, Storage and Conveyor Design in Chemical Plants " by Amin Almasi (Equipment Insights, June 8, 2026) | " Heat Pumps Slash Waste in Distillation Operations " by Thomas Kwan (Energy Saver, Feb. 16, 2026) | " Why This Water Pump Kept Cycling Off " by Andrew Sloley (Plant InSites, Jan. 26, 2026). All published on ChemicalProcessing.com.

Decades before the Strait of Hormuz closed and refineries started burning, process safety's great philosopher mapped exactly how pressure corrupts risk decisions.

This month's top stories cover an NRC environmental clearance for an advanced reactor in Texas, a deadly hydrogen sulfide incident under CSB investigation, SOCMA's regulatory priorities and new industry developments.

In every organization, informal hierarchies determine who gets heard, who gets interrupted and whose concerns get taken seriously. In process safety, the cost of getting it wrong is high. In this In Case You Missed It episode, Editor Traci Purdum reads a column from Lauren Neal, Chemical Processing's Workforce Matters expert. You can read the column here.

Experienced operators don't just know what to do — they know what to watch, regardless of how conditions change. That ability hinges on perceptual invariants: the critical relationships and variables that remain meaningful even as everything else shifts. Human factors engineer Dave Strobhar explains how identifying and reinforcing these invariants is the key to effective operator training. Rather than relying on years of trial and error, structured training programs — including targeted simulator use — can accelerate expertise dramatically. The goal is moving operators from simple stimulus-response behavior to true skill-based thinking that transfers across novel situations, closing the experience gap faster than ever before.

If you're a regular listener, you already know the deal — you work in this industry. You've spent your career in control rooms, on plant floors, in engineering offices, running calculations and managing processes that most of the world never thinks about. You know what a distillation column is. But this episode is meant to be shared with a spouse, a parent, a kid, a friend — someone who's asked you "so what exactly do you do all day?" and you've struggled to explain it.

The complexity of the human body makes critical thinking an essential skill for doctors. It’s also important in our work. However, engineers often learn the value of critical thinking the hard way. Dirk Willard, by way of Editor Traci Purdum's spoken word, tells us not to over-concentrate on the zebras... and let the horses run free.

From a $144 million federal push to address microplastics in drinking water to a CEO transition at Dow and Edison Award wins for chemical giants, here's what moved the needle in April 2026.

Throwing operators into full simulator scenarios sounds thorough, but it can mask the one critical subtask they actually need to master. Human factors engineer Dave Strobhar argues that effective operator training starts by identifying which subtasks carry the highest consequences — loss of containment, asset destruction, major downtime — and drilling those specifically before integrating them into broader scenarios. Using real examples of failed steam-system isolations and a misallocated $500,000 simulator budget, Strobhar makes the case for focused, measurable training objectives over checkbox exercises. The goal isn't to simulate everything. It's to ensure operators get the one decision right when it counts.