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This pipe-cladding process applies corrosion-resistant coatings faster

The surface engineering company MesoCoat, Inc. (Euclid, Ohio; www.mesocoat.com) recently started up a facility for manufacturing clad pipe for the oil-and-gas industry that uses the company’s proprietary fusion-cladding technology to apply corrosion-resistant alloys to carbon-steel pipes. Because the cladding can…

Electrochemistry may have a future in CO2 cleanup

An electrochemical process that could cut the energy and cost requirements for stripping carbon dioxide from stack gases by half is being developed at Arizona State University (ASU, Tempe; www.asu.edu). At present the only commercially viable technology is CO2 absorption…

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Physical chemistry principles point to a better way to clean up oil spills

One of the current methods for dealing with oil spills is through the use of dispersants. These dispersants, however, break oil into small globules that sink into the water, spreading the oil into a wider area, and they have toxic…

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Continuous production of ‘Bio-cokes’

Kinki University (www.kindai.ac.jp) and Naniwa Roki Co. (both Osaka, Japan; www.naniwaroki.co.jp) have developed a continuous process for producing a next-generation solid fuel, called Bio-cokes. The process is being used at a new production facility located at Kinki University Research Institute…

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New boiler fuels from oil, coal and biomass wastes

Composite liquid and slurry boiler fuels have been produced from mixtures of various waste materials, such as biomass, coal- and crude-oil-processing residues, wood and other combustible substances, in a collaboration between researchers at the University of Rhode Island (Kingston, R.I.)…

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Scale up planned for a new CO2-capture process

Plans are underway to field-test a process that removes more than 90 % of the carbon dioxide from power-plant flue gas, while reducing both the energy input and operating costs by 50 % compared to conventional amine-based CO2-scrubbing technology. The…

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Membrane reactor may reduce wastage of natural gas

A small-scale ceramic membrane reactor to convert natural gas to transportable liquids in a single step is being developed by Ceramatec, Inc. (Salt Lake City, Utah; www.ceramatec.com) under a $1.7-million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Research Project…

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Using sunlight to incorporate CO2 into alpha-amino ketones

The research group of Masahiro Murakami at Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan; www.sbchem.kyoto-u.ac.jp/murakami-lab) have synthesized a promising pharmaceutical precursor using only sunlight (as energy source) and CO2 (as co-reagent). The solar-driven process involves two consecutive reactions (diagram): first, light transforms an…

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A starch-based cationic polymer for oil recovery

Cationic polymers have been used in the petroleum industry as shale-control agents, demulsifiers, blocking agents, and filtrate reducers for drilling fluids, but process complexity and high cost have limited their application. Now researchers from Zhejiang Normal University (Jinhua; www.zjnu.edu.cn) and…

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A step towards artificial photosynthesis

A photocatalyst that reduces CO2 into carbon monoxide is being commercialized by Tokyo Chemical Industry Co. (Tokyo, Japan; www.tcichemicals.com/en/jp/index.html). Developed by Osamu Ishitani and his research group at Tokyo Institute of Technology (TiTech; Japan; www.chemistry.titech.ac.jp/~ishitani/index-jp.htm), the catalyst is a step…