Having information at your fingertips is becoming more of a necessity than a luxury. A number of new mobile applications provide plant operations managers and engineers with tools for quick safety references and process calculations.
Chemical Engineer Formulator App ($4.99, iPhone/iPod Touch)
The Chemical Engineer Formulator application does its best to cover the more common formulas used by chemical and processing engineers. The collection of 100 formulas includes:
- Air quality.
- Tank capacity.
- Emissions.
- Cost benefit.
- Energy loss.
- Water quality.
- Waste.
- A list of the Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous air pollutants.
There are some notable exceptions, but each month the company adds about 20 more formulas to the list, which can be downloaded for free by current users. Marc Schulman, vice president of Multieducator Inc., gave Chem.Info a hint of what’s to come: “We will definitely be adding formulas for pumps and heat exchange—while pressure drop formulas for specific applications may have to wait one or two more rounds of updates.”
Liquid Chromatography Calculator App (Free, iPhone/iPod Touch)
The free Liquid Chromatography Calculator application is designed to quickly calculate the flow rate and back pressure in liquid chromatography separation. A number of different conditions and column dimensions can be manipulated, including:
- Particle size.
- Solvent (acetonitrile or methanol).
- Porosity.
- Temperature.
As a result, you can determine the column configurations that would work within your system’s pressure range, and the flow rate generated at the system’s back pressure.
Material Safety Data Sheet App (iPhone/iPod Touch: $0.99; Blackberry: $3.99)
Available for the iPhone, as well as most Blackberries, the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) application for Blackberries/iPhones brings together MSDS information from:
- The National Fire Protection Association standard (NFPA 704).
- Workplace Hazardous Material Information System (WHMIS).
- The European system described in Annex II Policy 67/548/EEC.
- The Global Harmonized System (GHS).
A pictogram contains images and brief descriptions for each symbol used in the above standards, whereas a dictionary contains definitions for 26 common MSDS terms. Detailed MSDS information is not included.
