In October, Nippon Oil Corp. (Tokyo, Japan;www.eneos.co.jp) will start constructing a high-severity fluidized-catalytic cracking (HS-FCC) unit, the first in the world that can produce large amounts of propylene from heavy fuel oils. The unit, located at Mizushima Refinery (Kurashiki-City), will…
The lifetime of steel bearings can be extended by up to eight times by a new synthetic diamond lubricant, according to its developer, NanoLube, Inc. (Lombard, Ill.; www.diamondlube.com). The lubricant consists of 0.1–4-nm diamond spheres that are dispersed in a…
A team from the School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia; www.unsw.edu.au), has developed a process for the micronization of insulin called Arise (Atomized Rapid Injection for Solvent Extraction). According to BioParticle…
A single-step method to convert cellulosic biomass into aromatic compounds offers a simpler and more environmentally friendly route to the petrochemical feedstocks benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX), according to a Massachusetts bioenergy startup company seeking to scale up the technique.…
Pilot-scale production of biobased succinic acid from dextrose has been demonstrated by Myriant Technologies (Quincy, Mass., www.myriant.com). The firm expects commercial production by mid-2010. The succinic-acid process follows Myriant’s successful commercialization with partner Purac (Blair, Neb.; www.purac.com) of a biobased…
In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agancy (EPA; Washington, D.C.; www.epa.gov) announced the winners of the 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. Winners of the Challenge, which promotes R&D of less hazardous alternatives to existing technologies that reduce or eliminate…
Stirling Energy Systems (SES; Phoenix, Ariz.; www.stirlingenergy.com) and Tessera Solar (Houston; www.tesserasolar.com) recently unveiled four, newly designed solar-power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (Albuquerque, N.M.). The refined design of SunCatchers will be used in…
The cost of producing platinum catalysts could be reduced by up to 90% by a process being developed jointly by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, Livermore, Calif.; www.llnl.gov) and Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.; www.stanford.edu). The process involves the deposition of…
An energy-autonomous process for capturing air humidity for drinking water has been developed by scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology (IGB; Stuttgart; www.fraunhofer.de) and Logos-Innovationen GmbH (Bodnegg, both Germany; www.logos-innovationen.com). The concept is suitable for supplying…
A photocatalyst that uses visible light to deodorize and disinfect air has been developed by Hiroshi Taoda at the Materials Research Institute for Sustainable Development, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Chubu, Nagoya, (AIST; Chubu, Nagoya, Japan; www.aist.go.jp).…