A moving horizon estimation (MHE) approach to simultaneously estimate states and parameters is revisited. Two different noise models are considered, one with measurement noise and one with additional state noise. The contribution of this article is twofold. First, we transfer the real-time iteration approach, developed in Diehl et al. (2002) for nonlinear model predictive control, to the MHE approach to render it real-time feasible. The scheme reduces the computational burden to one iteration per measurement sample and separates each iteration into a preparation and an estimation phase. This drastically reduces the time between measurements and computed estimates. Secondly, we derive a numerically efficient arrival cost update scheme based on one single QR-factorization. The MHE algorithm is demonstrated on two chemical engineering problems, a thermally coupled distillation column and the Tennessee Eastman benchmark problem, and compared against an Extended Kalman Filter. The CPU times demonstrate the real-time applicability of the suggested approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.