Last May, Emerson (St. Louis, Mo.; www.emerson.com) was selected by Syzygy Plasmonics (Houston; www.plasmonics.tech) to automate its all-electric photocatalytic reactor technology. Syzygy has developed, scaled and integrated its core technologies, incubated at, and licensed from, Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu), into…
Isolation and purification of pure, active enantiomers is important in the development of active pharmaceutical ingredients and drug products. However, recovering the desired optical isomer from a racemic mixture means half of the chemical produced — the undesired isomer —…
Earlier this year, Salinity Solutions Ltd. (Coventry, U.K.; www.salinitysolutions.co.uk) signed an agreement with Te-Tech Process Solutions (Totton, Southampton, U.K.; www.te-tech.co.uk) to manufacture commercial water-purification systems based on batch reverse-osmosis (RO). This technology, originally characterized and developed at the University of…
Infinium (Sacramento, Calif.; www.infiniumco.com) recently announced that it has manufactured ton-level quantities of a proprietary catalyst that is integral in the company’s process for making liquid fuels from waste CO2 and hydrogen derived from renewable power. Infinium plans to manufacture…
Last month, the world’s largest double re-slurry para-xylene crystallization unit was started as part of Shenghong Refining and Chemicals Co. Ltd.’s integrated refining/chemicals project in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, China. Double re-slurry crystallization takes advantage of freezing-point differences among the three…
Last month, a pilot plant officially opened at the Fraunhofer Center for Chemical-Biotechnological Processes (CBP; Leuna, Germany; www.cbp.fraunhofer.de). The plant aims to further develop a process that recovers multiple products from rapeseed, including high-grade, pre-raffinate-quality rapeseed oil, a high-grade, protein-rich…
Hydrogen is a clear piece of the decarbonization puzzle for many industrial sectors, including petroleum refining, but a major challenge lies in the storage and long-distance transport of hydrogen in its gaseous form. One proposed solution is the use of…
The combination of electrochemical principles and microbial activity is the backbone of a treatment technology designed specifically for ultra-concentrated and challenging industrial wastewater. The Bioelectrochemical Treatment Technology (BETT) developed by Aquacycl (Escondido, Calif.; www.aquacycl.com) involves “microbial fuel-cells” that produce direct…
Using Waste Heat To convert large amounts of waste heat into electricity as efficiently as possible, turbines with a high degree of efficiency are required that work with a special conversion process — the organic Rankine cycle (ORC). In a…
This month, a demonstration experiment will begin on a new firing furnace for ceramics that is being developed by NGK Insulators, Ltd. (NGK; www.ngk.co.jp). The furnace is fired with hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. H2-fired combustion…