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;…
Nearly all ammonia is produced using methane via the Haber-Bosch process, which requires high-temperature and high-pressure operation. A new portable prototype device developed by researchers from Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.; www.stanford.edu) and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Dhahran,…
Water scarcity is a growing global concern that is driving increasing efforts to conserve, re-use and treat water. Desalination of seawater is a known technology to combat water shortages, but it is an energy-intensive process. Solar-powered evaporation can be a…
Permanent magnets — materials that create their own persistent magnetic field — are frequently used in most types of electronics, turbines, engines and motors. Currently, nearly all powerful permanent magnets require rare-earth elements (REEs), such as neodymium or samarium. A…
Biogenic materials, including agricultural residue or other organic waste, hold a considerable amount of energy density in the form of carbon and hydrogen, but efficiently processing these solid materials to harvest energy can pose challenges. The Modular Conversion TechnologyTM (MCT)…
A next-generation absorbent material with a high affinity for short- and long-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has recently been granted a patent in the U.S. Developed by Puraffinity Ltd. (London, U.K.; www.puraffinity.com), the material is bottom-up-designed, beginning with a…
Surfactants can stabilize oil and water in an emulsion, a useful mechanism in many industrial processes and in cleaning up oil spills. But separating and recovering the oil and water, such as for eliminating waste discharge, can be difficult. A…
Powerful permanent magnets Permanent magnets — materials that create their own persistent magnetic field — are frequently used in most types of electronics, turbines, engines and motors. Currently, nearly all powerful permanent magnets require rare-earth elements (REEs), such as neodymium…
Electrochemically converting carbon dioxide into useful chemicals or fuels is a promising CO2-utilization strategy, but scaling up the process is a challenge. One reason is that the gas-diffusion electrodes (GDEs) used to facilitate contact between gaseous CO2, solid catalyst and…