A process that produces hydrogen from coal with close to 80% energy conversion efficiency, plus coproduction of a carbon-dioxide-rich stream for sequestration, is being developed at Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio; www.osu.edu). This compares with around 60% conversion efficiency for…
CSIRO Energy Technology (Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia; www.csiro.au) is developing a solar-powered air conditioning unit for residential use, using a desiccant-evaporative process to provide cool and dehumidified air. Thermally driven ab- or adsorption chillers are commonly used to provide…
Last month, GE Oil & Gas (Florence, Italy; www.ge.com/oilandgas) received a contract to supply Eni S.p.A. (Rome; www.eni.it) with the largest refinery reactors of their type ever to be manufactured. GE Oil & Gas’ components-production facility in Massa, Italy, will…
The new NT 500 plate heat exchanger sets new performance standards with a volume flow of up to 4,500 m3/h. The steel frame can hold up to a thousand plates, and the largest version is 4.7-m high and 1.6-m wide.…
The Megawatter platform is a commercial implementation of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC) technology for direct electricity or hydrogen generation on a large scale, while using wastewater as fuel by treating the organic materials dissolved in water as a source of…
In these hard economic times, people working in troubled businesses may well envy the situation of Alberta’s oil sands industry. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP, Calgary, Alberta; www.capp.ca) predicts that the production of synthetic crude from oil sands…
There is increasing pressure on industry to reduce both energy usage and the associated CO2 emissions. An important and profitable action that industry can take is to recover more process energy and thus improve the efficient use of that energy.…
The use of gasketed plate-and-frame heat exchangers has gained tremendous acceptance in the chemical process industries (CPI) over the past 20 years due to their high heat-transfer coefficients, compactness and low cost. However, it is important for the engineer who…
Thanks to a €171-million financing deal, construction can begin on what is claimed to be the world’s first utility-grade solar power plant with central tower and salt receiver technology. When the so-called Gemasolar plant — located in Fuentes de Andalucia,…
A continuous process for producing biodiesel that has a residence time of about one minute, versus several hours for a conventional batch process, has been developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov). The process uses a…