OBJECTIVE To examine the association between wheezing in children and adolescents and living downwind of the dispersion plume of atmospheric pollutants emitted by the Guamaré Petrochemical Complex, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. METHODS Cross-sectional study of wheezing in children and adolescents (aged 0 to 14 years) living in the vicinity of the Guamaré petrochemical complex i...

The management and control of material flow forms the core of manufacturing execution systems (MES) in the petrochemical industry. The bottleneck in the application of MES is the ability to match the material-flow model with the production processes. A dynamic material-flow model is proposed in this paper after an analysis of the material-flow characteristics of the production process in a petr...

Catalytic pyrolysis is a promising thermochemical conversion route for lignocellulosic biomass that produces chemicals and fuels compatible with current, petrochemical infrastructure. Catalytic modifications to pyrolysis bio-oils are geared towards the elimination and substitution of oxygen and oxygen-containing functionalities in addition to increasing the hydrogen to carbon ratio of the final...

Iran’s energy and petrochemical exports have recently been restricted by a series of international sanctions. This paper focuses on one of the country’s exports, namely methanol – a petrochemical increasingly used for fuel blending and traded at various locations worldwide – and empirically explores the relationships among the North American, European, and Asian markets to investigate the incid...

Production of fuels and chemicals through microbial fermentation of plant material is a desirable alternative to petrochemical-based production. Fermentative production of biorenewable fuels and chemicals requires the engineering of biocatalysts that can quickly and efficiently convert sugars to target products at a cost that is competitive with existing petrochemical-based processes. It is als...

In this contribution we apply different approaches to solve four rather different MINLP problems: special extensions to time-indexed formulations of production planning problems, a production planning problem in BASF’s petrochemical division, a site analysis of one of BASF’s bigger sites, and a process design problem. The first problem is related to a useful nonlinear extension of production pl...

This report discusses the MARKAL-MATTER results regarding the impact of greenhouse gas policies on the petrochemical industry in Western Europe from an integrated chain perspective. The MARKAL-MATTER model gives insight in how different technologies might develop in the next decades at different emission permit prices. This report first describes the present situation in the petrochemical indus...