An improved sulfuric-acid alkylation process that reduces acid consumption by up to 50% from that of conventional processes will make its commercial debut in China. Developed by Lummus Technology, a CB&I company (The Woodlands, Tex.; www.cbi.com), the technology will be…
Steam traps are designed to allow condensate, but not steam, to escape from a steam line. When they malfunction, however, numerous costly consequences can result including energy losses, insufficient heating to processes, maintenance issues and more. At its Global Users…
A novel mesh for oil-water separation with opposite wettability to traditional materials has been developed by a group of researchers from Beijing, China — the Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (www.iccas.ac.cn); School…
Hydrofoil turbines mounted inside gravity-fed water-effluent conduits can generate significant electrical power without impeding flow, a demonstration project has shown. The in-pipe turbine systems offer chemical process industries (CPI) companies a way to extract emission-free energy from flowing wastewater discharge…
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…