Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) has adapted its recycle-split-vapor (RSV) technology for natural-gas liquid (NGL) recovery into a new, modular offering, RSV2, which enables quick retrofitting of existing gas-processing plants with minimal downtime. “The RSV2 technology can increase ethane…
Solvay S.A. (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) recently announced a new commercial process for synthetic eugenol (diagram), a derivative of phenol, whose natural version is extracted from clove oil obtained from dried flower buds of clove trees grown in Indonesia and Madagascar.…
Xylene isomers are usually derived from the catalytic reforming of crude oil, and require costly methods to separate them from each other, including distillation, fractional crystallization and adsorption in high-temperature and high-pressure environments. “The separation of xylene’s isomers requires much…
Self-healing adhesives Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) developed a series of autonomous self-healable and highly adhesive elastomers that are fabricated via a simple, efficient and scalable process. The self-healing elastomers demonstrated unprecedented adhesion strength and…
Microplastic pollutants in wastewater are notoriously difficult to treat, and can stem from many common sources, ranging from personal-care products to textiles. A new treatment technology developed by a team of researchers from Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS;…
Last month, Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) inaugurated a new plant in Lillo/Antwerp, Belgium to reduce the nitrous oxide emissions that are generated during the production of caprolactam. The €10-million investment breaks down approximately 500 metric tons (m.t.) of N2O…
Planned commercial-scale production of macrocyclic gamma-lactone molecules using an enzymatic process will supply the flavors and fragrances market with sustainable alternatives to existing processes based on synthesizing petroleum-derived molecules or isolating molecules from natural sources. The synthetic biology company Conagen…
Industrial-scale production of protein-rich food additives based on anaerobic fermentation is slated to begin later this year at a former bioethanol site in Minnesota. The facility will use a fermentation process developed by White Dog Labs (WDL; Newark, Del.; www.whitedoglabs.com)…
Ammonia catalyst Clariant Catalyst (Munich, Germany; www.clariant.com) and Casale SA (Lugano, Switzerland; www.casale.ch) have developed a new ammonia synthesis catalyst for sustainable CO2 reduction. Based on Clariant’s AmoMax 10 — a wüstite-based alternative to traditional magnetite-based catalysts — the AmoMax-Casale…
Pixelligent Technologies Inc. (Baltimore, Md.; www.pixelligent.com) has developed a process for making metal-oxide nanocrystaline materials that have found uses as additives in a variety of industrial lubricants, mixed- and augmented-reality (AR/MR) glasses, and various display technologies. The company’s PixClearProcess results…