This month, JFE Steel Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-532) started up a new production plant that produces 100 m.t./yr of solar-grade (SOG) silicon (Si) from crude Si metal. The company also started to design a 500-1,000-m.t./yr plant for making SOG Si,…
Researchers at Kanagawa University (Yokohama, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-535) have developed a three-phase emulsification technology for making stable emulsions of diesel-fuel oil in water. Tests with the emulsion (involving a 30-ton truck) show that fuel-combustion efficiency is increased by 10-15% compared to…
The first demonstration of a new high-temperature-superconducting cable was started last month in Columbus, Ohio. The new triax cable - said to provide three times more power-distribution capacity while using half of the superconducting material, compared to previous superconducting cable…
The process industries are extensive users of energy. But it is now clearly established that a large amount of this energy is wasted, essentially in the form of heat rejected to the environment through gaseous or liquid effluents.…
Brown coal accounts for about half the world’s coal reserves. Although it contains less ash and sulfur than bituminous, brown coal contains more water, which reduces its heating value. To take advantage of this “greener” source of fuel, Kobe Steel…
QuestAir Technologies Inc. (Vancouver, B.C.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-534) has received a CDN$2.2-million order from ExxonMobil (Houston, Tex.) for the construction of a prototype H-6200 hydrogen purifier to be demonstrated at an ExxonMobil petroleum refinery. The H-6200 is based on QuestAir’s proprietary Rapid-Cycle,…
Lurgi AG (Frankfurt; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-535) and the Karlsruhe Research Center (both Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-536) have signed a cooperation contract to construct a pilot plant for producing liquid fuels from biomass. As the first of three steps, Lurgi will build a €3.76-million pyrolysis…
At the end of July, Renewable Capital Ltd. (London, U.K.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-545) and Konarka Technologies, Inc. (Lowell, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-546) entered a licensing and joint-development agreement to scale up Konarka’s dye-sensitized solar-cell technology (CE, March 2004, p. 19). Renewable Capital has committed…
Last month, DynaMotive Energy Systems Corp. (Vancouver, B.C., Canada; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6516-548) announced the successful completion of an industrial-scale test burn of its BioOil as a replacement for natural gas in the lime kiln of a pulp and paper mill. The testing…
This month, New Energy & Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6515-535), together with two companies from China, began testing a coal-liquefaction process in a 100-kg/d pilot facility at the Coal Research Center (Beijing, China). The two Chinese firms…