Latest News: Technologies
Manufacturing bee silk with bacteria
A partnership between Australian research agency CSIRO (Melbourne, Australia; www.csiro.au) and Lonza Group Ltd. (Basel, Switzerland; www.lonza.com), aims to market new insect silk products globally. Potential applications of insect silk include composite fibers for the aviation and marine industries, and…
A non-crop-based sugar feedstock for bio-based chemicals and biofuels
Proterro Inc. (Princeton, N.J.; www. proterro.com) has demonstrated technology for directly producing sucrose as a feedstock for bio-based chemicals and biofuels that avoids the need for cellulosic biomass and energy crops. Using a genetically engineered strain of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and…
Detecting VOCs with a quantum-tunneling composite
A sensor that detects volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at levels of 10–100 parts per million (ppm) is being developed by Peratech Ltd. (Richmond, U.K.; www.peratech.com), with collaboration from the University of Durham (U.K.; www.dur.ac.uk). The so-called Electronic Nose is based…
The first synthesis and isolation of a ‘heavy ketone’
For the first time, researchers from Riken (Saitama, Japan; www.riken.go.jp) have synthesized stable crystals (photo) of a so-called heavy ketone — a compound in which the carbon of the C=O bond is replaced by Si, Ge, Sn or Pb. These…
Chlorine dioxide single-stage NOx scrubbing technology lowers costs
A new process for removing oxides of nitrogen (NOx) from industrial foul-air and cool combustion exhaust uses ClO2 in a unique way to remove over 99% of both NO and NO2 with a single scrubbing stage. The reaction vessel is…
Making structured carbon fibers from polyethylene
Researches at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) are developing a process that makes carbon fibers with customized surface contours from polyethylene-based fibers. The patent-pending technique uses a combination of fiber-spinning and…
Municipal solid waste is one feedstock for this bioethanol process
The technology surrounding a hydrolysis- and fermentation-based process that is capable of utilizing municipal solid waste (MSW) and biomass waste to produce cellulosic bioethanol at low cost is now available for licensing from its developer, TMO Renewables Ltd. (Guildford, U.K.;…
New polysilicon granule-drying system boosts processing yields and purity
A novel cold-dry process makes possible the utilization of fine form-factor silicon, such as granules and sand-like fines, in the production of high-purity polysilicon for solar photovoltaic cells and semiconductors, where such fine-grained material would normally have to be sent…
Lignin recovery process could improve profits for papermakers
Recovery boilers, in which pulp and paper companies burn spent black liquor from the kraft pulping process to recover and recycle sodium and sulfur, are a bottleneck in many paper mills. The reason is that they operate at their upper…
A new catalyst enables room-temperature interconversion of CO2 and formic acid
A new catalyst that converts H2 and CO2 into formic acid under mild conditions has been developed by researchers at the Solar Light Energy Conversion Group of Energy Technology Research Institute, National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST;…