Latest News: Technologies
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Alkaline-earth-based catalysts for C–C bond formation
Salts of alkaline-earth metals have been shown to catalyze reactions for the selective formation of carbon-carbon bonds, by chemistry professor Shu Kobayashi and colleagues at the University of Tokyo (www.chem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp). The research, supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency…
May Chementator Briefs
Wireless add-on ABB Instrumentation (Warminster, Pa.; www.abb.com/instrumentation) has made its entry into wireless communications technology with the WirelessHART upgrade adapter, previewed at ABB’s recent Automation & Power World. This adapter is used to connect existing HART transmitters that are wired…
April chementator briefs
Calibration-free pH The world’s first continuously self-calibrating pH measurement system was previewed at the Interphex show in New York last month by Sensorin (Burlingame, Calif; www.sensorin.com). According to the manufacturer, all currently available pH sensors including glass, optical and ion-selective…