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Latest News: Technologies

A fast way to recover CO2

A rapid pressure-swing-adsorption (rPSA) system to separate carbon dioxide from fluegas is being developed by W.R. Grace & Co. (Columbus, Md.; www.grace.com) and three partners under a $3 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov).…

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A high-performance electrode material for lithium-ion batteries

A huge market for lithium ion batteries is expected to develop as car makers move toward electric vehicles. However, improvements in the batteries’ energy and power density are needed. It is also desirable to replace the common, high-cost lithium cobalt…

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October Chementator Briefs

  Renewable jet fuel Houston-based bioenergy company Terrabon Inc. (www.terrabon.com) has been awarded a $9.6-million, 18-month contract from Logos Technologies (Arlington, Va.; www.logos-technologies) to produce 6,000 L of renewable jet fuel for the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency (DARPA; Arlington,…

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Making crude oil from coal, without mining or combustion

An underground coal-to-liquids (UCTL) technology is undergoing pilot testing at Oak Park, near Melbourne Australia, where a metric ton of brown coal is expected to yield about one barrel of oil suitable for use as refinery feedstock on an oil-parity…

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A new approach to maintaining tubular heat exchangers

At the 2nd Annual ChemInnovations Conference and Expo (Houston; September 13–15), Hemi-O Technologies LLC (Corpus Christi, Tex.; [email protected]) introduced its patent-pending technology that enables external access to individual tubes in a heat exchanger while the exchanger is in service and…

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Dewatering enzymes boost ethanol production efficiency

A technique that improves the efficiency of ethanol plants by lowering the cost of dewatering the byproduct stillage (a slurry of corn solids and water) from the fermentation process has been developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s…

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A new heterogeneous catalyst for low-temperature VOC decomposition

Professor Yuki Taniguchi at the Chemicals Research Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan, www.res.titech.ac.jp/~gosei/taniguchi/index.html) has developed a new catalyst system that decomposes volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at lower temperatures than that required by conventional catalysts. The SILP (supported ionic liquid…

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Solvent extraction method shows promise for recovering bitumen from tar sands

Today only a few percent of Canada’s oil sands resource is accessible by traditional surface mining, so the rest has to be recovered in situ, mostly by steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). In this process, steam is injected into a horizontal…

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‘Green’ surfactants from yeast

A new yeast strain that could one day substitute for petroleum as a source of surfactants for detergents, soaps and cosmetics has been identified by researchers at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (Peoria, Ill.;…

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Monomers from glucose

Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (MCC; Tokyo, www.m-kagaku.co.jp, MCC) is developing bio-based technology for producing propylene, butadiene, 1,4-butanediol (BDO), terephthalic acid and succinic acid from glucose. In collaboration with North American partners, MCC plans to start production of succinic acid and 1,4…