Latest News: Technologies
A new metals-recovery process moves to the pilot scale
Significant improvements to a process to extract vanadium, titanium and iron from the Mount Peake Vanadium-Titanium-Iron Project in the Northern Territory of Australia will be tested in a pilot plant now under construction and nearing completion. Results of the pilot-plant…
Carbon mineralization process monetizes CO2 from fluegas
The Capitol SkyMine project in San Antonio, Tex. utilizes fluegas from an existing cement plant to manufacture salable chemicals while preventing the CO2 from reaching the atmosphere. Built by Skyonic Corp. (Austin, Tex.; www.skyonic.com), the project is said to be…
Commercial debut for a new bioleaching process
Division Radomiro Tomic of Codelco (Codelco Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile; Santiago; www.codelco.www) is adopting a bioleaching process to recover copper from low-grade ores. The process was developed by BioSigma S.A. — a joint venture (JV) of JX Nippon…
H2 and CO2 from APG
Last month, Chiyoda Corp. (Yokohama; www.chiyoda-corp.com) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (Tokyo, both Japan; www.mhi.com) received approval in principle (AIP) for a jointly developed floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility for the production of H2 and CO2 from associated…
Coating for extremes
A coating that can protect turbine-engine and waste-incinerator components against heat and oxidation has been developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT; Pfinztal, Germany; www.ict.fraunhofer.de). The coating consists of an outer topcoat made from hollow, aluminum-oxide…
Sweet surfactants
A new range of sugar-based surfactants for skin- and hair-care products has been commercialized by Clariant AG (Muttenz, Switzerland; www.clariant.com). Tradenamed GlucoTain, the surfactants are based on glucose and natural oils, and are said to offer enhanced sensory benefits without…
This antifreeze is edible
Since 2010, Kaneka Corp. (www.kaneka.co.jp) and Kansai University (both Osaka, Japan; www.kansai-u.ac.jp) have been collaborating on the development of special antifreeze materials for applications in the food industry. In 2012, the group developed an antifreeze based on a protein derived…
Efficient distillation
Last month, Toyo Engineering Corp. (Toyo; Chiba, www.toyo-eng.co.jp) was awarded a contract for a distillation column in a methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) production plant of Maruzen Petrochemical Co. (Ichihara City, Chiba, Japan). The contract marks the first commercial application of…
Advanced Coatings for New Applications
Changing markets and new applications are putting more demands on the protective coatings industry than ever before. While developing environmentally friendlier and less labor-intensive corrosion- and chemical-resistant paints and coatings is always a major goal, new formulations are needed to…
Synthesizing omega-3 lipids from waste gases and algae
A collaboration between LanzaTech (Skokie, Ill.; www.lanzatech.com) and the IOC-DBT Center for Advanced Bio-Energy Research (Faridabad, India; www.iocl.com) has led to a carbon-capturing process that synthesizes omega-3 lipids in algae. Via a continuous fermentation step that takes place in a…