Award for Chemical Engineering Achievement

Edited by the Processingtalk editorial team Nov 25, 2003

Davy Process Technology has won the Kirkpatrick Honour Award for Chemical Engineering Achievement, as a result of their novel process technology for the production of ethyl acetate from ethanol

At a reception in New York on 18th November 2003, Davy Process Technology was presented with the Kirkpatrick Honour Award for Chemical Engineering Achievement.

This prestigious award is made every two years for the development of process technology that is innovative and has minimal environmental impact as well as being demonstrated at industrial scale.

Davy Process Technology won this award for its novel process technology for the production of ethyl acetate from ethanol.

Our new process is an outstanding example of how in a period of just five years a conceptual chemical route can be demonstrated in the laboratory, tested at bench scale and proved in a "Mini-Plant" before the construction of a commercial plant, which has been in operation since 2001.

This process is innovative because it entailed integrating dehydrogenation and selective hydrogenation reactions with pressure swing distillation and energy optimisation.

Moreover, the technology was proved in our unique Mini-Plants.

These are highly instrumented systems that operate continuously and generate engineering data that can be confidently scaled up by factors approaching 1:200,000.

The ethyl acetate process is fully developed and a 50,000 MTPA plant is being commercially operated in South Africa.

Our process technology is available for license to allow current producers of ethanol, or of biomass that can be fermented to ethanol, to add value to their product slate.

The Davy Process Technology proprietary technology for ethyl acetate has minimal environmental impact as the only feedstock is bio-regenerable ethanol and the process is simple and efficient in carbon, hydrogen and energy conversion.

Davy Process Technology has a global business in petrochemicals technology development and technology licensing.

The company has headquarters in London, a Technology Centre in Stockton-on-Tees and a subsidiary company in Switzerland.

It owns a range of proprietary process technologies including Methanol, Gas Conversion Processes, Butanediol, Natural Detergent Alcohols, Oxo Alcohols, Industrial Amines, Fertilisers, Loop Reactors, Fluorine Chemicals, Phosgene and Carbon Anodes.