Honeywell (Morris Plains, N.J.; www.honeywell.com) announced that it has acquired privately held SCAME Sistemi, s.r.l., adding new fire and gas safety capabilities to Honeywell's industry-leading portfolio of Connected Building solutions. SCAME is a leading provider of all-in-one systems that deliver…
PJSC Lukoil (Moscow; www.lukoil.com) announces that the final investment decision on the delayed coker complex at Nizhny Novgorod refinery was taken. The complex includes the construction of the delayed coker unit itself, the diesel hydro treatment unit, the gas fractionation…
Umicore N.V. (Brussels, Belgium; www.umicore.com) announced today that it has agreed to sell its European Technical Materials business to Saxonia Edelmetalle GmbH, a long-established German refiner and manufacturer of precious metal chemical compounds, semi-finished products and contact parts. The agreement…
An article that was recently published on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s website (MIT; news.mit.edu) is titled “Why researchers should step out of the lab.” It tells the story of an MIT doctoral student whose research was focused on developing…
H2SO4 Catalyst BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has introduced a new catalyst for making sulfuric acid. The cesium-based O4-115 Quattro catalyst has a unique geometrical shape — a combination of four strands — leading to a 30% greater catalytic surface…
In boilers, silicates can volatilize with the generated steam and then form silicate glass on turbine blades, causing an imbalance. Therefore, the concentration of silicates in boiler circuits must be reduced to below 0.5 parts per million (ppm). The conventional…
A new adsorption-based technology can separate ozone from oxygen in O3-generating systems, allowing recycling of unreacted O2. In corona-discharge O3 generation, O2 molecules are split by passage through an electric field to create free oxygen atoms, which quickly combine with…
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Ga. Tech; Atlanta; www.gatech.edu) have demonstrated a precision-machining technique to manufacture an entire pumping loop from materials that can withstand temperatures as high as 1,400–1,600°C. These materials are typically thought to be too…
Polymer-electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) are promising devices for clean power generation in automotive, stationary and portable applications. Up to now, the proton exchange membranes (PEMs) used in PEFCs have been based on perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) ionomers (for example, Nafion). However,…
A new process for producing lithium titanate oxide (LTO) anode materials could lead to smaller batteries with ultrafast recharging. LTO offers a significantly higher surface area than graphite anode materials, which enables rapid electron transit and, ultimately, much faster recharging…