Perfluorinated compounds — firefighting foams — such as perfluorooctane sulfonates (PFOS) have been used as fire suppressants, but some of them, such as perfluoroalkyl acids have been associated with serious environmental contamination. Also, several new fluorinated surfactants have been developed…
Takahiro Yamashita and colleagues at the Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO, Tsukuba, Japan; www.naro.affrc.go.jp) have developed an aerobic bioreactor that can reduce nitrous oxide emissions by nearly 90% in the treatment of…
Composite coating A new composite material that prevents metal corrosion, even under extreme conditions, has been developed by researchers from the INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials GmbH (Germany; www.inm-gmbh.de). The patented composite consists of layers of particles placed…
A new prototype lithium battery with a very thin metal anode achieves an energy density of 1,200 W-h/L at room temperature — double that of conventional Li-ion batteries using graphite anodes. The prototype battery, developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technologys…
The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki; www.nedo.go.jp) and Sankyo Tateyama Inc. (Takaoka, both Japan; www.st-grp.co.jp) have developed technology that enables the casting of small-diameter (500–100-mm dia.) magnesium alloy billets, which are suitable for direct, compact forging.…
Chemists from Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu) are developing an asphalt-based powder that holds 114% of its weight in CO2. The porous material, known as asphalt-porous carbon (A-PC) captures CO2 as it leaves a natural-gas wellhead at room temperature and at…
Praxair Surface Technologies, a division of Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com), has recently introduced a new line of ceramic aluminum coatings that are said to have the same performance as legacy chromium (VI)-containing coatings. The company’s SermeTel CF and SermaLoy…
Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) is a relatively new process to form carbon-carbon bonds of well-defined polymers. Since its discovery in 1995, ATRP has been performed using transition-metal complexes, such as those of copper. This feature has limited the application…
Construction has been completed on a trailer-mounted pilot plant that will produce substitute natural gas (SNG) from the products of biomass gasification (H2, CO2 and CO). Built by researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; www.kit.edu) as part of…
A specially designed electrode could improve the efficiency of removing suspended solids, oil or other contaminants from water in applications traditionally served by dissolved-air flotation (DAF). Developers at OriginOil Inc. (Los Angeles, Calif.; www.originoil.com) believe their electrolysis process overcomes limitations…