October 2014

Many industrial plants currently operating around the world have already surpassed their design life expectancies. Despite the challenges they face, such as corrosion and new regulations, these operations continue to be productive. To maintain the status quo and continue operation, plant managers need to keep a watchful eye on every aspect of the facility, from inspection and maintenance programs to the bottom line. Of course, plant safety and the environment, both of which can rise to the top of an aging plant’s list of concerns, are always on their minds.

This month's topic is safety equipment...

For a chemical engineer, John Televantos has a unique job: “We try to look into the future to see what’s most likely to happen and then invest in businesses that can help make that future a reality,” he says. He is a Partner at Arsenal Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in New York, NY. By making careful and research-driven investments, Arsenal Capital helps smaller businesses in the chemicals and materials sectors grow — something that Televantos believes has a strong positive impact on society.

The ability to control chemical reactions to efficiently and selectively produce the desired products has vastly improved over the past decades, with increasingly sophisticated techniques now available to dictate the outcome of these reactions. While much progress has been made, much more is needed to realize a perfect reactor, which would allow for full control of chemical transformations at the molecular level. In the October AIChE Journal Perspective article, “Practical Challenges in Energy-Based Control of Molecular Transformations in Chemical Reactors,” Andrzej Stankiewicz, Izabela Szydłowska Franssen, Daniel Irimia, and Georgios Stefanidis of Delft Univ. of Technology expand on this topic of molecular control in chemical reactors.