When Estee Lauder begin stirring up recipes for facial creams recipes in her kitchen some 70 years ago — the start of a $6.5-billion cosmetics empire that still bears her name — making high-purity emulsions was…
By repetitive dividing and merging of laminar flows within complex patterns of narrow (25–40 µm) channels, static micromixers are very efficient at making homogeneous mixtures. However, the narrow channels are susceptible to clogging, and the cost to precisely manufacture the…
Cellulose accounts for about 40% of the planet’s total photosynthesis yield (about 1.8 trillion m.t./yr), but the material has not been fully utilized as a chemical resource so far. That’s because the methods currently available for converting cellulose into useful…
ExxonMobil Chemical Technology Licensing LLC (Houston, Tex.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-541) has commercialized its new Olgone technology, a catalyst-based process for removing olefins from aromatic streams. If not removed, such olefinic materials interfere with downstream equipment, adsorbents, sieves and catalysts, says the company.…
Last September, construction commenced on the world's first commercial-scale hydrogen peroxide, propylene oxide (HPPO) plant at the Antwerp, Belgium, site of BASF AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-542). The 300,000 m.t./yr facility is a joint venture of BASF and Dow Chemical Co.…
Construction is underway on what is said to be the world's largest hydrogen chloride recycling plant, for Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS; Leverkusen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-536). When the unit starts up in 2008 at the Shanghai, China site, it will produce 215,000…
Since February, Lonza Singapore Pte. Ltd. has been using a new I-400 catalyst in a Isomar unit at its Singapore plant, which produces pure isophthalic acid (an intermediate for making resins). The I-400 catalyst was developed by UOP LLC (Des…
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arlington, Va.) has awarded $5.7 million to a two-company consortium to develop an inexpensive and energy-efficient process for making titanium metal powder. Such powders can be used to make strong, lightweight objects, such…
Chemists at Boston College (Chestnut Hill, Mass.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6517-546) have discovered a silylation catalyst that attaches a silicon atom to an alcohol group not only with high selectivity, but also in such a way that only one enantiomer is formed. Silyation…
Researchers from 34 institutions from around the world have completed the first DNA sequence for a tree, the black cottonwood or Populus trichocarpa (poplar). This poplar's rapid growth and relatively compact genome size (480 million nucleotide units, or 1/40th as…