Bio bisabolene Through genetic engineering of microbes, scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov) Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have coaxed both bacteria (Escherichia coli) and yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to produce a chemical precursor to bisabolane — a critical…
Last month at the Brau Beviale 2011 Exhibition (November 9–11; Nuremberg, Germany), Alfa Laval AB (Lund, Sweden; www.alfalaval.com) launched a new plate heat exchanger, which combines the energy efficiency, accessibility and modularity of plate technology with the viscous and particulate-handling…
A catalyst for making amides from alcohols and amines under aerobic conditions has been developed by Professor Shu Kobayashi and his research group at the University of Tokyo (Tokyo, www.chem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/users/synorg/index_e.html). The catalyst — nano particles (2.4-nm dia.) of gold and…
Using an array of lamps inside a highly reflective chamber, the optical cavity furnace (OCF) takes advantage of photonics effects to help manufacture solar photovoltaic cells with higher efficiency than those made by conventional rapid-thermal-processing (RTP) methods. In addition, the…
Last month at the Namur Annual General Meeting in Bad Neuenbahr, Germany, the first working prototype of FDI (field device integration) was demonstrated. FDI device packages were used to integrate Foundation Fieldbus, HART and Profibus field devices of various manufacturers…
Using gene recombination technology, Toyota Motor Corp. (TMC; Toyota City, Japan: www2.toyota.co.jp/en) has developed a new strain of yeast that achieves one of the highest ethanol-fermentation density levels in the world — approximately 47 g/L with 87% yield (based on…
In combustion, the ratio of fuel to air is key to efficiency, emissions control and stable performance of the combustion system. Adjusting this ratio to accommodate variability in fuels — due to the use of different fuels, and the variability…
Base-catalyzed decomposition (BCD) is a commercially used process developed in the early 1990s by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.) for the destruction of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It has been used as an alternative to incineration for…
Researchers at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul; www.umn.edu) have produced thin-film zeolite membranes that are only 200 nm thick, compared to 5–10 µm for conventional zeolite membranes. The new membranes could cut energy and capital costs by 90% for…
Last month, KBR (Houston; www.kbr.com) was awarded a license and process-design-package contract for a new olefins-production unit using the Advanced Catalytic Olefins (ACO) technology. The contract represents the first license of the ACO process, which catalytically cracks naphtha and other…