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Latest News: Technologies

Plastics-to-oil JV plans full-scale facility

A joint venture (JV) between Vadxx Energy LLC (Akron, Ohio; www.vadxx.com) and Greenstar Recycling (Houston; www.greenstarrecycling.com) plans to start up a facility in mid-2012 to convert recovered plastics to synthetic crude oil. When complete, the facility will produce 80,000 bbl/yr…

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Biomass pretreatment

Cellulosic biomass pretreated with ammonia undergoes structural changes that make it more susceptible to enzymatic attack, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, N.M.; www.lanl.gov) and collaborators at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (Madison, Wisc.; www.glbrc.org) have found.…

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A simpler process to make PX from LCO

Anew process to make BTX (benzene, toluene and xylenes) from light cycle oil (LCO), an oversupplied product of petroleum refineries that can supplement the dwindling supply of BTX precursors, is being developed by JX Nippon Oil & Energy (JX Energy;…

Carbon storage and electricity generation project gets DOE funding

A project aimed at using geothermal heat to power an electricity-producing turbine with supercritical carbon dioxide has received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov). The project also incorporates an element of CO2…

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September Chementator Briefs

Phosgenation scaleup At the end of July, Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS; Leverkusen, Germany; www.bayerbms.com) successfully tested its new gas-phase phosgenation technology at a new plant being commissioned for making toluene diisocyanate (TDI) — a raw material for making polyurethane —…

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Boost heavy metal recovery from wastewater with graphite-oxide coated sand

A process to greatly enhance the ability of sand to filter heavy metals from water has been developed by researchers from Monash University, of Melbourne, Australia (www.monash.edu.au), Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu) and Nanoholdings LLC (Marietta, Ga.; www.nanoholdings.com). Historically, the researchers…

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Microbe-based process for GBL nears commercialization

Metabolix Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.; www.metabolix.com) has successfully demonstrated and completed research and development for scaleup on a fermentation process that produces gamma -butyrolactone (GBL) from genetically engineered bacteria. The process is built upon the company’s technology for engineering metabolic pathways…

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A promising method for producing conductive graphene sheets

Since the isolation of graphene by the “Scotch tape” method, many researchers have tried to synthesize solution-dispersible graphene. The challenge has been to develop a high-yield method that can exfoliate graphite efficiently into solution-dispersible graphene sheets without collateral damage to…

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A new HPCA monomer

Last month, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) launched a new crosslinking acrylate monomer, hydroxpropl carbamate acrylate (HPCA), which is said to shorten the processing time for the manufacture of carbamate-based polymers. HPCA enables crosslinkable carbamate units to be incorporated into…

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A promising new forward-osmosis membrane

Forward osmosis (FO) has been recognized as a valuable technology for many applications including wastewater reclamation, seawater desalination, and energy production, due to the low energy input required. The osmotic pressure gradient across a semipermeable FO membrane causes water to…