The Fourth Industrial Revolution has been all over the news in recent years, transforming how manufacturing and other industries function. It includes many technologies that bridge between the physical and digital worlds, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, augmented reality, robotics, data analytics and 3D printing. These and other technologies and their applications are rapidly changing the way products and processes are designed, built and used.

Comprehensive valve performance management provides monitoring and service for valves throughout a process or facility. In a webinar George Buckbee, head of performance solutions at Metso Flow Control USA Inc., described how this can work.

Buckbee showed that the total cost of ownership for a typical control valve includes much more than just the cost of the valve itself (see table).

3D printing in a factory 3D printing encompasses a family of processes that involve building up a plastic or metal part in an incremental layer-by-layer fashion. Today a few of these processes are radically accelerating familiar manufacturing operations, but probably not in the ways that you might expect. Valve manufacturers, in particular, are leveraging 3D printing technologies to rapidly reduce the cost and improve the supply chain efficiency of their production tooling, fixtures and other manufacturing line components—while bringing new products to market faster. 3D printing as a whole includes a wide range of materials and technologies, but high-strength 3D printing of plastics is the specific subset key to the manufacturing revolution. High-strength 3D printing is not a single technology but an umbrella term for a combination of modern engineering materials and advanced 3D printing processes that satisfy the demanding needs of the plant floor.

“When considering what a global energy system on a 1.5°C or 2°C [2.7°F or 3.6°F] pathway will look like by 2050, hydrogen consistently plays a critical role as a low-carbon fuel,” according to a report from Rocky Mountain Institute authored by Thomas Koch Blank and Patrick Molloy. Here are some highlights from that report.

When considering the carbon emission savings for using hydrogen, a complete view must take into account, both the carbon “cost” of producing the hydrogen, as well as the reduction in carbon emissions made possible by using hydrogen instead of fossil fuel at the point of use.