A Chemical Engineer's Guide to Leading

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1. 

   E185 · 9 Oct 2026 · 7 min

   The ‘Safe Pair of Hands’ Problem in Succession Planning

   In a chemical facility, choosing the person who feels safest is understandable. These are high-risk environments where poor decisions can affect production, people and plant. Nobody wants to experiment with leadership when the consequences of getting it wrong can be dire. The problem is that competence is not the same as readiness, and familiarity is not the same as low risk. When succession decisions repeatedly favor the people who already look, sound and operate like current leaders, organizations may believe they are reducing risk. In reality, they may be reproducing it. Listen to this In…

2. 

   E184 · 2 Oct 2026 · 11 min

   Operational Flexibility Is an Energy Asset — If You Manage It Right

   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 Throughput." Kwan, whose official title at Schneider is global vice president of strategic innovation…

3. 

   E183 · 25 Sep 2026 · 8 min

   Courts, Settlements and Capacity Bets

   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.

4. 

   E182 · 18 Sep 2026 · 24 min

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

   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 fouling, chlorine damage and cutting corners on monitoring. Buecker also covers normalization…

5. 

   E180 · 4 Sep 2026 · 14 min

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

   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.

6. 

   E179 · 28 Aug 2026 · 6 min

   Distilled News: CSB Ties Clairton Blast to Valve Procedure, Argonne Advances Lithium Extraction, DOE Funds Minerals Workforce

   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.

7. 

   E178 · 21 Aug 2026 · 27 min

   Condensate Recovery: Know What’s In the Water

   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.

8. 

   E177 · 14 Aug 2026 · 25 min

   Solution Spotlight: Get Your Coriolis Tube Design Right — or Pay for It Later

   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…

9. 

   E176 · 7 Aug 2026 · 32 min

   Solutions Spotlight: Closing Measurement Gaps Without Shutting Down the Plant

   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