When to Choose API Pump?

Process engineers are often required to make a choice between API and ANSI pumps for hydrocarbon service. API is the conservative and safe option, but also very expensive and not always warranted. Though there are no clear cut guidelines on when to opt for API pump, Heinz Bloch provides the following Rule of Thumb in his book Improving Machinery Reliability – Volume 1

From a reliability point of view, API pumps are preferred for toxic, flammable or explosion prone services if one or more of the following conditions exists:

1) Head > 350 ft (107 m )
2) Temperature > 149 degs C on pumps with discharge flange > 100 NB or > 177 degs C on pumps with discharge flange <> 100 hp (74 KW)
4) Suction pressure > 75 psig
5) Rated flow > flow at BEP
6) Pump speed > 3600 rpm

Kirkpatrick Award Finalists

Chemical Engineering magazine has announced names of the 5 finalists for the biennial Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award :
1) The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.) and BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany), for an industrial process for producing propylene oxide (PO) via hydrogen peroxide
2) DuPont (Wilmington, Del.), for commercializing Cerenol — a new family of high-performance polyether glycols made from corn-derived 1,3-propanediol (Bio-PDO)
3) Lucite International (Southampton, U.K.), for its Alpha technology — a new process for making methyl methacrylate (MMA)
4) Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium), for its Epicerol process — a new process for producing epichlorohydrin from glycerine
5) Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany) and Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany) for the HPPO process for making PO via H2O2

Curiously 2 of these 5 processes are for producing Propylene Oxide via Hydrogen Peroxide. The final winner would be announced in December.