Processing & Handling
Facts At Your Fingertips: NOx Formation in Combustion
Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are a family of highly reactive gases that can be produced naturally, but largely result from fuel combustion (industrial combustion and automobile engines). In the environment, they are pollutants that react with volatile organic compounds in…
Preventing Clogs in Low-Flow Coriolis Mass-Flow Controllers
In low-flow applications, Coriolis mass-flow controllers can be susceptible to clogging due to their small orifice. Filtration can solve most common clogging issues. Here are tips for filtration and clog prevention Advanced material and catalyst research, as well as critical…
Convert CO2 to methanol at room temperature
A new electrocatalytic technology (diagram) is said to be the first to produce methanol from CO2 at ambient temperature and pressure in a commercially viable reactor design. Oxylus Energy (New Haven, Conn.; www.oxylusenergy.com) recently unveiled a 5-cm2 electrolysis cell to…
Flow reactor safely performs SuFEx click chemistry
Click chemistry — the subject of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — is a powerful and efficient method for rapidly connecting chemical fragments. One highly versatile type of click chemistry involves the so-called SuFEx [sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange] reaction, which…
Reducing CO2 emissions from pig iron production
Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; Germany; www.kit.edu) and the SMS group GmbH (Düsseldorf, Germany; www.sms-group.com) have developed a new process to reduce CO2 emissions from worldwide steel production by several hundred million tons per year. It is based…
Copper-graphene composite could enable more efficient electrical hardware
Composites of copper and graphene have been explored as a way to improve electrical conductivity, but researchers have not been successful at enhancing conductivity with a corresponding reduction in the temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), and have not been able…
Chementator briefs
CO2 TO METHANOL Last December, Sumitomo Chemical Co, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; www.sumitomo-chem.co.jp) started operating a pilot facility for producing methanol from CO2 at its Ehime Works, located in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. The company aims to complete the demonstration…
Facts At Your Fingertips: Overview of Reactor Types
Reactors are at the core of most processes in the chemical process industries (CPI) and are broken down most broadly by whether their operating mode is non-flow (batch) or continuous. Each reactor type has advantages and disadvantages depending on the…
This new stainless steel is ultra-resistant to corrosion
One of the major hindrances in saltwater electrolysis for “green”-hydrogen production is the cost of materials to construct electrolyzer components that can withstand an extremely corrosive saltwater environment. Currently, titanium coated with platinum or gold is usually required for such…
Converting a steel mill to climate-neutral steel production
To decarbonize steel production and its high carbon dioxide emissions, Fraunhofer researchers, TS Elino GmbH (Dürren; www.elino.de) and Salzgitter AG (all Germany; www.salzgitter-ag.com) are working on converting an existing steel mill to climate-neutral production methods. The aim is to produce…