What is said to be the world’s first commercial alkylation plant to use a solid acid catalyst is scheduled for startup early next year by Shandong Wonfull Petrochemical Group Co. (Zibo, China). The plant, which will produce 100,000 ton/yr of…
The temperature and moisture level of the air being drawn into the front end of ammonia, nitrogen, nitric acid or other plant air compressors directly impacts the yield from the process, and chilling is a way to debottleneck air production…
A demonstration plant in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, will produce hydrochloric acid and iron pellets from the iron-chloride leach liquor generated by the production of synthetic rutile, the common mineral form of titanium dioxide. The plant will utilize a…
Nippon Paper Industries Co. (Nippon Paper; Tokyo; www.nipponpapergroup.com) is constructing a verification plant for the production of cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) at the Chemical Div. of its Iwakuni Mill. Scheduled to start up in October, the facility will have a production…
Two new coating products for sand proppants used in hydraulic fracturing operations in the oil and gas industry overcome the challenges of traditional phenolic coatings, which can leach environmentally hazardous chemicals. The coatings, developed by Preferred Sands LLC (Radnor, Pa.;…
Researchers from the group of Atsushi Fukuoka at the Catalysis Research Center of Hokkaido University (Sapporo; www.cat.hokudai.ac.jp), and Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; Tokyo, both Japan; www.sdk.co.jp) have developed a new catalyst that efficiently decomposes biomass into sugars. The activated-carbon-based catalyst…
The research groups of Keiichi Fujishige at Tohoku University (Sendai, www.che.tohoku.ac.jp/~erec) and Daicel Corp. (Osaka, both Japan; www.daicel.com) have developed a process for making 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO) from glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel-fuel production. The researchers improved a catalyst developed by…
Heap-leaching for REs Studies conducted by Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (Sierra Blanca, Tex.; www.trer.com) indicate that heap leaching with 15% (~150 g/L) sulfuric acid has the potential to dissolve minerals containing rare-earth (RE) elements from host rock at…
The Circa Group (Melbourne, Australia; www.circagroup.com.au) and the Green Chemistry Center of Excellence at the University of York (U.K.; www.york.ac.uk) have signed an agreement to develop and commercialize a novel “green” solvent called Cyrene. Cyrene is a polar aprotic solvent…
Although several antimicrobial hydrogels have been developed in recent years, they all have one or more drawbacks, such as possible toxicity, insufficient stability and biodegradability, and high costs. These and other drawbacks have been overcome with a synthetic hydrogel being…