In Malaysia, about 2-million metric tons (m.t.) of rice husk are produced each year, and the rice husk is either burned or disposed of as waste. Now this waste may find application as a non-leachable building material thanks to a…
Results of 12-mo immersion tests in biodiesel and bioethanol of a range of elastomer polymers typically used in fuel-handling equipment show that the seals are prone to significant swelling, which leads to failure in valves and other equipment, according to…
A newly marketed portable reactor system for generating hydrogen is capable of generating 1,000 L of the gas in 20 min. The volume is sufficient to fill a 5-ft-dia. weather balloon, which is the first market targeted by the system’s…
Researchers from the Center for Membrane Technology, Beijing University of Technology (China; www.bjut.edu.cn) have developed a new spiral-wound membrane module for use in oxygen-enriched combustion. A pilot-scale system with five membrane modules has been built and tested in a 4-ton,…
Water reclamation Last month, a new water-reclamation process for the oil-and-gas industry was launched by HBC Systems, a newly created joint venture between Hydration Technology Innovations (HTI; Scottsdate, Ariz.; www.htiwater.com) and Bear Creek Services, LLC (Albany, Ore.; www.bearcreekservices.com). The…
A demonstration plant that will produce transportation fuels from cellulosic biomass will be built at Tesoro Corp.’s petroleum refinery in Kapolei, Hawaii, by Envergent Technologies (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.envergenttech.com), a joint venture of Honeywell’s UOP (Des Plaines; www.uop.com) and Ensyn…
What is said to be the first grassroots lignite-fueled power plant to use powdered activated carbon (PAC) for mercury capture has been started up near Franklin, Tex., by Luminant (Dallas, Tex.). In its initial operation the 800-MWe supercritical plant has…
This summer, Celitement GmbH (Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany; www.celitement.de) will begin construction on a pilot plant to produce a new cement known as Celitement. Located at the north campus of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; www.kit.edu), the facility will produce up…
A recently commercialized method for growing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNs) in large quantities enables their use in a downstream process for depositing semiconducting inks onto flexible surfaces. Southwest NanoTechnologies Inc. (Norman, Okla.; www.swentnano.com) has developed a scalable technique (CoMoCAT process)…
Alcoa of Australia (www.alcoa.com.au) has developed a process to recover sensible and latent heat from the fluegas (FG) produced by Bayer alumina calciners, and use the heat to evaporate Bayer spent liquor. Peter Hay, of Alcoa’s Technology Delivery Group, at…