Latest News: Technologies
May Chementator briefs
Double-effect coating Researchers at the Leibniz-Instutut für Neue Materialien GmbH (INM; Saarbrücken, Germany; www.inm-gmbh.de) have developed a nanocomposite coating that simultaneously protects against corrosion while having lubrication properties similar to grease and oil. The new material is suitable for coating…
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;…
Base-catalyzed nucleophyllic additions with a modified zeolite
A new solid-state basic catalyst for forming carbon-carbon bonds has been developed by Masaru Ogura, an associate professor, and his research group at the Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo (www.u-tokyo.ac.jp). The catalyst has been shown to accelerate the…
April Chementator Briefs
Biobutanol milestones Last month, Cobalt Technologies (Cobalt; Mountain View, Calif.; www.cobalttech.com) announced two achievements toward commercial-scale production of bio-based n -butanol: the demonstration of its biomass pretreatment process, and the demonstration of its advanced-strain fermentation process. In cooperation with…
Expanded certifications for industrial virtualization
Invensys Operations Management (IOM; Plano, Tex.; iom.invensys.com), a division of Invensys, has expanded its certification for virtualization technology, making its industrial automation systems the first to be certified for high availability, disaster recovery and fault tolerance in supervisory control applications…
Plastics with soy-derived protein reduce petroleum use
New biocomposite plastics that combine soybean-meal protein with conventional plastic resins allow significantly lower use of petroleum-based chemicals in polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) manufacturing. The new class of bioplastics incorporates soybean-meal protein, which is chemically bound to the PE…