Plant Watch Asahi Kasei to increase global production capacity for LIB separators January 11, 2018 — Asahi Kasei Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp) will increase production capacity for lithium-ion battery (LIB) separators at its plants in North Carolina and Shiga, Japan.…
The field of data analytics is evolving quickly, and an increasing number of tools are being designed with chemical engineers in mind Big data, smart devices, Internet of Things (IoT) — these are terms heard more and more frequently in…
New milling, grinding and size-reduction equipment helps processors obtain better efficiencies and develop new products Although milling and size-reduction equipment may be mature — some technologies date back to the 1800s — evolving needs of chemical processors, including the demand…
Compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs) offer significant advantages, such as non-flammability, and a high capacity of the metallic Al anode. However, due to inadequate cathodic performance, especially capacity, high-rate capability and cycle life, AlBs cannot compete with…
Plans are underway for a demonstration-scale facility in France that will convert non-food lignocellulosic biomass into raw materials for bio-based chemicals and animal feed products, such as feed for fish farming. The process, developed by Arbiom (Research Triangle Park, N.C.;…
A process technology that upgrades offgas from petroleum refineries has been commercialized by Siluria Technologies Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.; www.siluria.com) and Wood (Aberdeen, Scotland; www.woodplc.com). According to Siluria, the new Modus technology’s ability to chemically convert refinery offgases into high-quality…
A new collaboration between PPG (Pittsburgh, Pa.; www.ppg.com), SiNode Systems (Chicago, Ill.; www.sinodesystems.com) and Raymor Industries (Boirsbriand, Que., Canada; www.raymor.com) aims to accelerate commercialization for battery anodes made of a silicon-graphene composite. “These materials can achieve significantly higher capacities than…
3-D Printing At the 3-D printing tradeshow Formnext in November, GE Additive (Paris, France; www.ge.com) unveiled a laser-powder additive manufacturing machine with a 1-m3 build envelope. The machine, said to be the world’s largest laser-powder system, will be used to…
A counter-rotating propeller technology that is being developed to harness the energy from tidal currents has been field tested off the coast of Nagasaki Bay, near Iwo Jima, Japan. The prototype, which is one seventh the size of a commercial…
A new type of steam-reforming system that produces — in a single step — purified, compressed hydrogen from methane has been developed by a team of scientists from CoorsTek Membrane Sciences AS (Oslo; www.coorstek.com), the University of Oslo (both Norway;…