Latest News: Technologies
This new pump system improves efficiency for desalination operations
A new hydraulically driven, positive-displacement-pump system can lower the energy requirements for pumping water by 10% in large seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants, where electricity typically represents the largest cost. Recently launched by GE Water & Power (www.ge-energy.com) at…
A move toward bio-based malic acid, acrylic acid and butadiene
A move toward bio-based malic acid... Novozymes A/S (Copenhagen, Denmark; www.novozymes.com) has developed a strain of metabolically engineered Aspergillus oryzae fungus that is capable of producing the four-carbon, dicarboxylic acid compound malic acid. The chemical building block malic acid is…
A high-temperature F-T process demonstrated in China
Synfuels China Technology Co. (Beijing; www.synfuelschina.com.cn) says it has developed a high-temperature slurry Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process (flowsheet) that produces mainly clean diesel, naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) products, with unique features including: high productivity of proprietary catalyst; efficient recovery…
Making synthetic rubber from biomass
Ajinomoto Co., Inc. (www.ajinomoto.com) and Bridgestone Corp. (Both Tokyo, Japan; www.bridgestone.com) have jointly developed a bio-based, high- cis-polyisoprene synthetic rubber. The two companies began an R&D cooperation in June 2011 to combine their know-how — Ajinomoto’s state-of-the-art fermentation technologies for…
Detecting sub-50-nm particles in ultrapure water
A new particle-size measurement technique has been developed and used to evaluate filter retention efficiency for particles with an average diameter of 12 nm by C.T. Associates Inc. (Eden Prairie, Minn.; www.ctassociatesinc.com) and W.L. Gore and Associates (Newark, Del.; www.gore.com).…
August Chementator Briefs
A new electrolysis cell At Achema 2012, ThyssenKrupp Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany; www.uhde.eu) introduced a new generation of its single-element electrolysis cell, Generation 6, which offers improved energy consumption and increased active-membrane area. These improvements are due to an…
A self-healing dynamic membrane
French researchers from the Institut Européen des Membranes (CNRS/ENSCM, Université Montpiellier; www.iemm.univ-mont2.fr) and the Institut de Chimie Radicalaire (CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université) have developed what is claimed to be the first dynamic membrane for water filtration that not only can adjust…
Methane recovery from a trona mine
Last month, Solvay Group (Brussels, Belgium; www.solvay.com) unveiled a methane recovery system (the MaRS Project) that captures methane liberated by mining trona ore (trisodium hydrogendicarbonate dihydrate), and pipes the gas to nearby processing facilities as a fuel for process heating.…
Scaleup of a CTL process with carbon capture
The Yankuang Group (Zoucheng City, Shandong Province; www.ykjt.cn), one of China’s largest coal companies, and Accelergy Corp. (Houston; www.accelergy.com), are jointly developing a large-scale, low-carbon, coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant incorporating both direct and indirect liquefaction, in Erdos in China’s Inner Mongolia…
Coke oven offgases may help to increase steel production
Two dissimilar iron-making methods — a conventional blast furnace using coke from coal, and gas-based direct reduction of iron ore — are combined in a process being developed by Midrex Technologies, Inc. (Charlotte, N.C.; www.midrex.com) and Praxair Inc. (Danbury, Conn.;…