Opportunities caught in UOP sieve

, a Honeywell company, announced today that Shanghai UOP (SUOP), a molecular sieve production facility, will expand its capacity and capabilities to meet growing demand in China.

Productivity improvements, as well as upgrades to equipment, are expected to boost capacity at the facility by 20 percent and allow for a broader range of differentiated product offerings.

The facility manufactures molecular sieve adsorbents, which are used to separate molecules by size. They are used in petrochemical production and oil refining, processing of natural gas, industrial gas and air separation, refrigerant drying and other applications. Located in the Minhang Economic and Technical Development Zone in Shanghai, SUOP is the largest manufacturing plant for adsorbents in Asia.

Carol Bibb, senior vice president for UOP’s Catalyst, Adsorbents and Specialties business said that the company is planning additional investments to further expand production in China because of product demand driven by strong growth of industrial activity of the region.

Zeolite molecular sieves are crystalline structures that, on a molecular scale, are like sponges. They have a solid framework, defined by large internal cavities where molecules can be adsorbed. These cavities are interconnected by pore openings through which molecules can pass, and because of their crystalline nature, the pores and cavities are all precisely the same size.

Depending on the size of the openings, they can adsorb molecules readily, slowly, or not at all, thus functioning as molecular sieves, adsorbing molecules of certain sizes while rejecting larger ones.