Our Success Stories

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An API pharmaceutical manufacturer needed to treat wastewater containing organics and chlorinated compounds at variable capacities (1.5–3.5 t/h), while meeting strict discharge limits and reducing energy consumption. Long‑term reliability and operational flexibility were critical requirements.

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A global pharmaceutical manufacturer needed to recover ethyl acetate and cyclohexane from a multistep synthesis process with high purity and yield under strict GMP requirements. The existing setup suffered from high product losses, elevated operating temperatures, and a complex multi‑step system.

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Our customer needed to purify raw biomethanol stream from a pulp mill at the world’s largest biomethanol plant, ensuring removal of impurities to meet strict Grade AA quality standards.

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An API manufacturer needed to treat wastewater containing organics and chlorinated compounds (1.5–3.5 ton/h) while meeting strict discharge limits and reducing energy consumption, all without compromising operational flexibility.

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A specialty chemical company needed to recover acetic acid from a wastewater stream (5 m³/h, 8 wt.% acetic acid) while meeting strict environmental discharge limits and ensuring process reliability.

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A resin manufacturer needed to treat wastewater with phenol concentrations up to 3.6 wt% while meeting strict discharge limits and recovering phenol for reuse. The plant required a compact, cost‑effective solution capable of handling 2.5 tons/hour of wastewater.

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Our customer needed an energy efficient system to recover the valuable by-products particularly furfural from a condensate generated during biomass pellet production.

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A cellulose producer needed to reduce the environmental impact of wastewater containing highly diluted acetic acid and furfural, while converting these byproducts into valuable resources for resale.

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A total waste management company was contracted by an electronics company to process three distinctively different waste streams. Therein, the customer needed to simultaneously obtain very high purity iso-propyl alcohol, wastewater of purity satisfying environmental regulations, and fuel additives from solvent recovery.

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A recurrent customer in the flavors and beverages field wanted to have an almost identical unit similar to a former project executed in Europe. Sulzer was in a unique technical and commercial position due to having excellent experience with the customer in Europe and the Americas.

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Design a fatty acid fractionation plant capable of processing 150 tons/day and handling two different feedstocks (SPSFA and C1618UH).

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High-purity purification of a heat-sensitive active ingredient for crop protection in highly corrosive media, requiring very low vacuum and batch process.

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Scale up purification of EPA and DHA while minimizing product losses, handling high working temperatures, and simplifying a multi-step system.

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A total waste management company was contracted by an electronics company to process three distinctively different waste streams. Therein, the customer needed to simultaneously obtain very high purity iso-propyl alcohol, wastewater of purity satisfying environmental regulations, and fuel additives from solvent recovery.

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Enable large-scale chemical recycling of polystyrene and post-consumer plastics, which are typically non-recyclable, while ensuring safe depolymerization and purification of chemical feedstock for reuse in manufacturing.

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SEDCE is spearheading the development of this comprehensive new energy ecosystem to foster a greener, more sustainable future for the state and wants to produce SAF.

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Avalon wants to enable the scale up the production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to meet growing global demand and decarbonize the aviation industry.

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Energy Absolute needed rapid implementation of HEFA technology to produce SAF in Thailand.

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Reduce high energy consumption, improve solvent recovery above 96–97%, increase API concentration by 30–40x, and overcome space constraints.

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Recover valuable chemicals (acetic acid and furfural) from wastewater streams while reducing environmental risks, meeting strict compliance requirements, and minimizing excessive energy consumption.

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Recover high-purity solvent from a feed containing 3–10% solids, while minimizing losses of solvent with solids and reducing high steam consumption. Create a reliable unit to recover maximum solvent for circularity.

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A refinery needed to boost the thermal efficiency of several fired heaters both natural-draft and forced-draft with APH to reduce fuel consumption and meet decarbonization targets. However, efficiency was limited to 92% due to sulfur dew point corrosion risks.

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A refinery anticipated a long-term decline in gasoline demand and sought to convert part of its gasoline molecules into petrochemical products, focusing on its largest unit – FCC.

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A refinery was in need to remove sulfur from its FCC gasoline to meet Euro-5 specification, but all available hydrodesulfurization method have notable octane loss due to partial olefin saturation.

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Several refineries and petrochemical plants suffered large amount of aromatics loss, especially benzene loss, in their NFM solvent extraction units. Most units had done multiple troubleshooting attempts with physical modifications while keeping the NFM solvent, but failed to achieve required improvement.

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A polymer producer needed to replace the existing binary column wastewater unit as it was not separating light and heavy alcohols from the wastewater efficiently and represented an environmental problem. The new system had to operate with enough flexibility to handle varying polymer production upstream.

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Stripping 1-propanol from wastewater to below 100 ppmv under varying feed temperature conditions and avoiding downstream disruptions. 

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An existing wastewater stripping system could not provide the operating flexibility and increase in capacity required by the client. Additionally, the stream contained organic and chlorinated compounds that needed to meet very low outlet concentrations. 

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A new dual-fueled cargo ship builder needed a compact solution to recover excess BOG (boil-off gas) from LNG. 

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An LNG carrier was converted into a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), due to limited space and strict weight restriction, needed a space-efficient BOG (boil-off gas) recondensation system. 

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The Customer would like to recover both ethyl acetate and toluene from a single waste that had variable compositions day-by-day. Very high yield (up to 98%) and purity (>99.8%) for both products were targeted. Furthermore, these products had a highly challenging water specification to fulfill (<200 ppm).  

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A flavors and fragrances company needed to purify five essential oils, each with unique requirements for concentration, fractionation, and removal of toxins and VOCs some down to ppm levels. The task was complicated by a strict 20-hour batch limit, limited VLE data, and space constraints at the production site.

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A plastics pyrolysis plant faced severe fouling in its quenching system, causing frequent shutdowns and high maintenance costs, while needing to maintain oil quality and minimize CAPEX.

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Preserve delicate aromas in bio-based extracts during concentration at temperatures below 50°C, minimize liquid waste.

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The customer needed an ethanol recovery distillation system that could operate without steam (boiler at full capacity) and fit within a restricted space, while reducing energy use and emissions.

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Design a methanol–water distillation system for a green methanol plant powered only by renewable energy with no access to steam, while cutting down energy usage and aligning with the plant’s sustainability objectives.

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Reduce high capital costs and large footprint of traditional phosphoric acid purification processes, which require multiple mixer-settlers or columns for extraction, scrubbing, and stripping steps.

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Convert used lubricating oil into premium-quality base oil by removing complex impurities (PAHs, sulfur, nitrogen, chlorides) without relying on costly, energy-intensive hydrotreating processes.

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Improve lithium recovery from brines while reducing the complexity, footprint, and solvent usage & losses of traditional mixer-settler systems (20–30 units), which caused high CAPEX/OPEX, long residence times, and environmental risks.

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Reduce phenol concentration in wastewater from 1,000 ppm to 300 ppm while reusing phenol to lower environmental impact and costs.

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The pharmaceutical company needed to increase production capacity extremely quickly due to the COVID-19 emergency.

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The client’s batch-based process produced phenol-rich wastewater with complex contaminants like formaldehyde and alcohols. This led to high variability, frequent manual adjustments, low efficiency, and reduced product quality.

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Produce high‑quality, regulatory‑compliant TDAE while keeping PCAs below 3% despite highly variable feedstocks and difficult physical properties without sacrificing efficiency or yield.

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