A process that destroys hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and recovers high-purity calcium fluoride has been developed by chemical-engineering professor Hideki Yamamoto at Kansai University (Suita City, Osaka; www.cheng.kansai-u.ac.jp/Process) in cooperation with Shiraishi Kogyo Kaisha Ltd. (Amagasaki City, Osaka; both Japan; www.shiraishi.co.jp/kogyo). The technology…
A new approach to the design of the downcomer portion of distillation column trays — presented at the recent American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Spring 2010 meeting (San Antonio, Tex.; March 21–25) — promotes a uniform fluid flow pattern,…
Engineers at the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA; www.ucla.edu) have developed a new class of highly permeable reverse-osmosis (RO) membranes for water desalination that incorporates a “brush layer” of hydrophilic polymer chains anchored to the membrane surface. Brownian motion of…
Biodiesel fuel is being produced for under $2/gal from product wastes in a process commercialized by Ever Cat Fuels (Anoka, Minn.; www.evercatfuels.com). This is comparable to the cost of diesel fuel obtained from petroleum, says Arlin Gyberg, a co-inventor of the…
As producers continue to develop new applications for nanoparticles, the health, safety and environmental (HSE) hazards associated with these miniscule particles remain uncertain and controversial. To minimize the HSE risks for handling nanoparticles, GEA Niro, (Søborg, Denmark; www.niro.com) has developed…
The cleanup of nuclear waste could be simplified by a process being developed at Northwestern University (Chicago, Ill.; www.northwestern.edu) and Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne, Ill.; www.anl.gov). Nuclear waste consists mainly of non-toxic sodium ions, but this is mixed with a…
An instrument called the Cottonscope, which automatically measures cotton maturity in 25 s, has been developed by CSIRO Cotton Research Unit (Melbourne, Australia; www.csiro.au). The unit’s leader, Stuart Gordon, says the instrument has been used to measure when a crop…
This month, Showa Denko K. K. (Tokyo, Japan; www.sdk.co.jp) will begin marketing its carbon-nanotube (CNT) product, tradenamed VGCF-X. The company produces the CNTs in its new, 400-ton/yr production plant at its Oita facility, and plans to ramp up production to…
Scientists at Carbon Sciences Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.; www.carbonsciences.com) have successfully demonstrated a CO2-to-fuel process that proceeds under mild conditions using fluegas emissions as a carbon dioxide source and brackish water as a hydrogen source. The modular, three-step process is…
A hard biomaterial Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Applied Materials Research (IFAM; Bremen, Germany; www.ifam.fraunhofer.de) have developed a granulate form of a biomaterial that may replace titanium used as screws and other hardware in medical applications.…