Thin gold films offer a broad range of benefits for electronics due to their high electrical conductivity and transparency. Current manufacturing methods are unable to achieve gold films thinner than 10 nm, and are also limited in the area and…
The wide range of performance properties of polyurethane foams makes them essential in many consumer goods. Thus, there is much effort going into creating a more environmentally friendly production process for polyurethane’s main building blocks, polyols and isocyanates. While much…
In December 2024, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL; Richland, Wash.; www.pnnl.gov) announced a three-year collaborative project with vehicle-tire manufacturer Bridgestone (Tokyo, Japan; www.bridgestone.com) to scale up a thermocatalytic process for converting renewably derived ethanol to n-butene. Conventionally, n-butene is…
Developing sustainable pathways to ethylene — among the world’s most widely used chemicals — is a key element in decarbonizing the process industries. A new electrolysis technology developed by CERT Systems (Toronto, Ont., Canada; www.co2cert.com) can produce ethylene from CO2…
Desalination of seawater with reverse osmosis (RO) membranes is a key technology for addressing water scarcity issues around the globe, but seawater desalination is energy-intensive and the brine discharge can create coastal environmental problems. The company Flocean AS (Oslo, Norway;…
Quality control processes can have a reputation for being redundant or tedious, but they play a fundamental role in producing consistent and effective products. When it comes to the manufacturing of products for the medical and life-sciences sectors, these processes…
KBR, Inc. (Houston) announced that it has been awarded a contract by Weardale Lithium Ltd. for one of Europe’s most advanced demonstration facilities for lithium brine extraction in Eastgate, County Durham, U.K. Under the agreement, KBR will provide technology licensing…
To better serve growing customer demand in Europe and the Americas, Envalior (Düsseldorf, Germany) announced that it will invest in a PPS (Polyphenylene Sulfide) compounding facility in Europe. Envalior’s PPS material, Xytron, combines a strong set of properties, including excellent…
Sulzer Ltd. (Winterthur, Switzerland) has launched the new PyroCon technology, which rapidly cools the gases emitted during pyrolysis, a process that heats and liquefies plastic without oxygen, limiting harmful pollutants. The resulting pyrolysis oil can be then used as a…
Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo) announced that Toray Plastics (China) Co., Ltd. will establish a new production site for high-performance resin compounds. These materials deliver excellent heat and chemical resistance and mechanical strength. Common applications are automotive electrical components and electrical…