Latest News: Technologies
An energy-saving bioreactor for wastewater treatment
A bioreactor technology for removing organic and inorganic contaminants from industrial wastewater has been commercially launched by developer Honeywell and its subsidiary UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com). The launch is part of a wider initiative by UOP to respond…
This solar cell promises to be less expensive
A commercial prototype perovskite solar cell that is less expensive than current thin-film solar cells is under development by a team from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore; www.ntu.edu.sg), in collaboration with Dyesol Ltd. (Queanbeyan, NSW, Australia; www.dyesol.com) and professor Michael Grätzel…
A step forward for a new titanium leaching process
Reed Resources Ltd. (Perth, Western Australia; www.reedresources.com) has advanced its Barrambie Titanium Project — about 600 km northeast of Perth, Western Australia — with the construction (now in its final stages) of a mini-pilot plant in Canada to demonstrate a…
Using algae to produce medium-chain-length fatty acids
Scientists at Kao Corp. (KAO; Tokyo, Japan; chemical.kao.com) have discovered an enzyme that has the potential for producing large quantities of medium-chain (C12) fatty acids (FAs), which are the main components of natural oils, such as palm-kernel and coconut-palm oils.…
The commercial debut for a gas-to-gasoline process
Last month in Ovadan-Depe, Turkmenistan, construction began on a plant that will produce gasoline from natural gas. When the plant starts up approximately four years from now, it will produce 15,500 barrels per day (bbl/d) of synthetic gasoline using the…
A direct route to organosilicon compounds
Researchers from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; Tsukuba City, Japan; www.aist.go.jp), with support from New Energy and Industry Technology Development Org. (NEDO; Kawasaki City; Japan; www.nedo.go.jp) have developed a technology to efficiently synthesize tetra-alkoxy-silane —…
This process realizes large costs savings for manufacturing silicon wafers
Crystal Solar Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.; www.xstalsolar.com) is preparing for high-volume production of silicon wafers using a process that forms the wafers directly from trichlorosilane (TCS) gas using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) epitaxy process that can significantly lower the…
Demonstration plants for biomass-to-sugar technology under construction
Edeniq Inc. (Visalia, Calif.; www.edeniq.com) announced progress in building demonstration facilities in Brazil and China that feature the company’s proprietary process for converting cellulosic biomass into industrial sugar for fermentation or catalytic conversion (diagram). In Brazil’s São Paulo state, Edeniq…
September Chementator Briefs
CO2-to-syngas . . . Scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago ( www.uic.edu) have developed a catalytic system — molybdenum disulfide and an ionic liquid — to convert CO2 into synthesis gas, (syngas; a mixture of CO and…
An inexpensive, sensitive device for detecting explosives
A microfluidic, paper-based analytical device (µPAD) — in conjunction with confirmation by a “lab-on-a-chip” analysis — was developed for detection of three explosives (trinitro aromatics) by a team from the University of Technology Sydney (Sydney, Australia; www.uts.edu.au), the University of…