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Upgrading natural gas

  A process that produces hydrogen-enriched natural gas, with carbon black as a byproduct, is being developed by Atlantic Hydrogen Inc. (Fredericton NB, Canada; www.atlantichydrogen.com). The company has piloted the process at a scale of 25 m3/h of natural gas…

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A microreactor makes HMF from just sugar and water

Hajime Kawanami and colleagues at the AIST Tohoku Collaboration Center, Research Center for Compact Chemical Process, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; Sendai, Japan; www.aist.go.jp) have developed a continuous, one-step process for synthesizing hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a biologically…

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Another potential outlet for glycerin

Hiroshi Abe and colleagues at Biochemical Group of Research Institute for Innovation in Sustainable Chemistry, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Tsukuba, Japan; www.aist.go.jp) have discovered a strain of acetic-acid bacteria (which normally oxidize ethanol into acetic acid)…

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A new static mixer delivers substantial cost savings

At Achema last month (May 11–15; Frankfurt, Germany), Sulzer Chemtech AG (Winterthur, Switzerland; www.sulzerchemtech.com) launched a new static mixer, the SMX plus. For homogenizing viscous fluid, the new SMX plus has about half the pressure drop of the company’s standard…

Renewable feedstocks: Beyond a one-to-one conversion*

Today, stakeholders seeking to produce platform chemicals from renewable feedstocks are evaluating competing routes — based on, for example, oxidation, reduction, selective bond breaking, selective bond formation, and the selective dehydration of sugars — for breaking down complex starting materials…

Renewable feedstocks: Challenges of lignin and bagasse*

Because of the difficulties associated with separating it from lignocellulosic feedstocks, “lignin has typically been burned by papermakers to produce process heat or power. This is a tragic waste of a good source of carbon,” says Joseph J. Bozell, associate…

Renewable feedstocks: Biobased plastics*

Dow is currently building a 770-million-lb/yr train to produce Dowlex linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) in the middle of a sugar cane field in Brazil. Once online, the unit will be the first fully integrated sugar-cane-to-polyethylene complex in the world, according…

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Ammonia from biomass

SynGest, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.; www.syngest.com) plans to commercialize a process for the production of ammonia from biomass by the fall of 2011. The first plant, to be located in Menlo, Iowa, will convert 150,000 ton/yr of corncobs into 50,000…

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A better way to make efficient catalysts

A new procedure for making uniform, metallic nanoparticles has been developed by the research group of Kousuke Mori, an associate professor at Osaka University (www.mat.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp), with support from New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki, both Japan). The…

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Spinning yarns of CNTs

The exceptional properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), such as high tensile strength and high thermal and electrical conductivities, have suggested a number of applications, including lightweight materials for ballistics protection, actuators for muscles or artificial muscles, filaments for light sources,…