Chemical Processing Distilled

10:52

Operational Flexibility Is an Energy Asset — If You...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/10/02

Schneider Electric's Thomas Kwan explains why chemical plants should map their loads before buying software, and why "the optimizer decides" isn't an operating philosophy.Jonathan Katz, executive editor of Chemical Processing, recently spoke with Thomas Kwan, an energy transition expert at the Schneider Electric Sustainability Research Institute, about his most recent Energy Saver column for Chemical Processing, titled "The Flexible Chemical Plant: Scheduling Energy Use Without Sacrificing

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8:00

Courts, Settlements and Capacity Bets

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/09/25

In September's Distilled News, a federal appeals court strikes down the EPA's methylene chloride ban, three chemical makers agree to pay $455 million over PFAS, and BASF and Kemira look at new production.

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23:31

Reverse Osmosis: When It's Time to Ditch the Softener

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/09/18

In this episode of the Chemical Processing Distilled Podcast, Brad Buecker of SAMCO Technologies joins editor-in-chief Traci Purdum to dig deeper into reverse osmosis for boiler makeup water. Buecker contrasts RO with sodium softening, explaining how RO removes up to 99% of dissolved ions, cutting corrosion, scaling and blowdown compared to softening alone. He stresses that raw water quality and pretreatment reliability — not snapshot testing — determine RO success and warns against microbiological

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22:43

A Chemical Engineer's Guide to Leading

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/09/11

An Eastman Chemical veteran-turned-leadership coach explains why technical excellence doesn't translate to leadership skill — and how organizations can close the "broken rung" that pushes women out of the pipeline right after their first promotion.

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13:35

U.S. Chemical Makers Ride Iran War's Oil-Gas Price Gap

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/09/04

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.

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6:19

Distilled News: CSB Ties Clairton Blast to Valve...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/08/28

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.

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27:07

Condensate Recovery: Know What’s In the Water

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/08/21

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.

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24:30

Solution Spotlight: Get Your Coriolis Tube Design...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/08/14

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

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32:04

Solutions Spotlight: Closing Measurement Gaps Without...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/08/07

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

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11:16

Distilled News: CSB Faults Woodland Pulp and Bio-Lab...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/07/31

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.

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5:46

EPA, HHS Move Microplastics from Fringe Concern to...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/07/24

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.

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47:55

Why Sodium Softeners Make or Break Boiler Water...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/07/17

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

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9:38

Double Check Your Physical Properties Data

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/07/10

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.

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14:05

Powder, Progress, and 250 Years: The Chemistry Behind...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/07/02

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.

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5:07

Mergers, Layoffs and Geopolitical Risk Reshape the...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/06/26

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.

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14:53

Pumps, Flow and the Fight Against Wasted Energy

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/06/12

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

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5:27

Trevor Kletz Warned Us

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/06/05

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

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6:49

Distilled News: Dow-X-energy Nuclear Milestone, Fatal...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/05/29

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.

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6:34

You've Told Your Team to Speak Up. But Are You...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/05/22

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.

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21:47

Perceptual Invariants: The Hidden Key to Operator...

Chemical Processing Distilled ·

2026/05/15

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

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