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Mercury sorbent A palladium-on-alumina sorbent, designed to remove mercury from synthesis gas in coal-gasification plants, has captured more than 98% of the mercury contained in a sour syngas stream in a test conducted by Southern Co. (Atlanta, Ga.; www.southernco.com). The…

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A direct coal-liquefaction process goes commercial…

The world’s first commercial plant to produce liquid fuels by direct coal liquefaction is now being started up in Majata, Inner Mongolia, by Shenhua Group (Beijing). Designed to produce 25,000 bbl/d of syncrude from 4,300 metric tons per day (m.t./d)…

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Add CaC2 to improve the efficiency of steelmaking furnaces

An innovation that improves the steelmaking efficiency of an electric arc furnace (EAF) by adding calcium carbide to the process has been developed by NuFlux, LLC (Warren, Ohio), a producer of steelmaking fluxes, and Carbide Industries LLC (Louisville, Ky.; www.carbidellc.com),…

Petroleum refiners seek to increase distillate yield, decrease emissions . . .

Strategies for extracting more distillate from petroleum to meet the growing demand for diesel fuel constituted a major theme of the recent annual meeting of the National Petrochemical and Petroleum Refiners Association (NPRA, Washington D.C.; www.npra.gov) in San Antonio, Tex.…

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Reducing foundry emissions

Cast parts, such as engine blocks, are typically made by pouring molten metal into so-called cores — sand-based molds that have internal passages for the component to be cast. Such casting cores are typically made by reacting sand with organic…

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Cold-war cleanup  

On March 31, U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.) Secretary Steven Chu announced $6 billion in new funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate environmental cleanup work and create jobs across 12 states. Projects identified for…

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Ammonia from biomass

SynGest, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.; www.syngest.com) plans to commercialize a process for the production of ammonia from biomass by the fall of 2011. The first plant, to be located in Menlo, Iowa, will convert 150,000 ton/yr of corncobs into 50,000…

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Solid catalyst simplifies turning algae into biodiesel

Researchers at United Environment & Energy (UE&E; Horseheads, N.Y.) have developed a catalyst for the efficient conversion of algae to biodiesel. The mixed-metal oxide catalyst (comprised of metals that are resistant to corrosion yet reactive) facilitates the transesterification of algae…

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A better way to make efficient catalysts

A new procedure for making uniform, metallic nanoparticles has been developed by the research group of Kousuke Mori, an associate professor at Osaka University (www.mat.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp), with support from New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki, both Japan). The…

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Spinning yarns of CNTs

The exceptional properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), such as high tensile strength and high thermal and electrical conductivities, have suggested a number of applications, including lightweight materials for ballistics protection, actuators for muscles or artificial muscles, filaments for light sources,…