Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST; Daejeon; www.kaist.ac.kr) have developed a three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous nanostructured catalyst that is said to have a CO2-to-CO conversion rate up to 3.96 times higher than that of conventional…
A semiconducting material synthesized by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI; Troy, N.Y.; www.rpi.edu) could enable new ways of manipulating electronic materials remotely using light. The material, explains RPI professor of materials science and engineering Jian Shi, derives its unique…
Ethylene is a multifunctional phytohormone that regulates growth, ripening and other functions in plants. For example, bananas stored next to apples will ripen quickly due to the ethylene released from the apples, which in turn are triggered to release more…
Li2CO3 from brine Purities of greater than 99.9% for battery-quality lithium carbonate have been achieved using a proprietary artificial-intelligence-powered crystallization technology developed by Standard Lithium Ltd. (Vancouver, B.C.; www.standardlithium.com). The total cation contaminant levels were reduced from nearly 2,500 parts…
Caprolactam Genomatica (San Diego, Calif.; www.genomatica.com) recently announced the production of the world’s first renewably sourced ton of caprolactam, the key ingredient for nylon-6. The company made the caprolactam by fermenting plant sugars with engineered microbes, departing from the conventional…
A technology that removes oil from the surface of water without pumps or chemicals has been developed by German researchers at the Universities of Bonn (www.uni-bonn.de) and Aachen (www.uni-aachen.de) and textile-manufacturer Heimbach GmbH (Düren, Germany; www.heimbach.com). Textiles with special surface…
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov) recently reported a process for converting various blends of cellulosic biomass and municipal solid waste (MSW) into aliphatic methyl ketones. The team used bio-derived ionic liquids to first break down the…
A team of researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI; Worcester, Mass.; www.wpi.edu) are investigating hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) to simultaneously treat a variety of municipal waste streams and create biofuels. “HTL is an emerging technology for the conversion of various types…
Hydrogen is transported in steel tanks and pipelines. However, H2 causes embrittlement of steels by accumulating at microstructures called dislocations and at the boundaries between the individual crystals of which the steel is composed. The accumulation of hydrogen weakens the…
At the ARC Industry Forum in February, Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS; Houston; www.honeywellprocess.com) released the Experion PKS IT Highly Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE), a new technology that centralizes up to 80% of IT infrastructure used in project engineering. The PKS…