Plant Watch Evonik to construct new polyamide 12 plant at Marl Chemical Park March 14, 2018 — Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) is planning to build a new production complex for polyamide 12 (PA 12). The group intends to…
Major efforts are underway to develop new process technology for making chemicals using sunlight and the products of combustion No one can deny that the sun provides more than enough energy to supply the world’s energy and materials needs. After…
Modern air-filtration systems provide more-efficient dust collection and assist with air quality compliance Air-filtration and dust-collection systems are the go-to gear for protecting employees and equipment from dust exposure and for complying with air-quality, safety and combustible-dust regulations enforced by…
Glycolic acid Researchers from the group of professor Miho Yamauchi at the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) of Kyushu University (Fukuoka City, Ito Campus, i2cner.kyushu-u.ac.jp) have fabricated a liquid flow-type electrolyzer that can continuously produce an alcohol from…
Last month, Genomatica (San Diego, Calif.; www.genomatica.com) and Aquafil (Trento, Italy; www.aquafil.com) announced a partnership to commercialize a Genomatica process for making caprolactam derived from renewable feedstocks, rather than from petroleum. The cyclic amide caprolactam is a key intermediate for…
In what is said to be the largest municipal wastewater application using peracetic acid (PAA) disinfectant to date, the Metro Wastewater Reclamation District in Denver, Colo. recently began disinfecting wastewater effluent with a PAA formulation from Enviro Tech Chemical Services,…
Researchers led by professor Hideo Honoso at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Yokohama City, Japan; www.titech.ac.jp) have discovered a new catalyst that enhances the efficacy of NH3 synthesis by two orders of magnitude over that of a conventional Ru catalyst at…
Acrylonitrile (ACN) — a precursor in nearly all carbon fibers — is typically produced from propylene and ammonia, but a new method uses biomass-derived second-generation sugars. The process was developed by Southern Research (Durham, N.C.; www.southernresearch.org) and seeks to provide…
A team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (Ulsan, South Korea; www.unist.ac.kr), led by professor Jong-Beom Baek has introduced a synthetic methodology for fabricating a three-dimensional porous organic network with a high specific surface area via a solid-state…
New membranes developed at Tufts University (Medford, Mass.; www.tufts.edu) can effectively separate similar chemicals based on not only size but on electrostatic charge. “Currently, there are no commercial membranes that are designed to separate organic molecules of similar size but…