Before being fed to the blast furnace, iron ore is first converted into pellets by, for example, a traveling-grate (TG) pelletizing plant. In this plant, so-called green pellets are conveyed through a furnace that heats the pellets to high temperatures…
Strain on demand for critical battery metals is forcing manufacturers to seek alternative materials. Sulfur’s high thermal stability and abundance are making it a promising emerging battery material. A new class of solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries developed by Theion GmbH (Berlin,…
A new catalyst-coated membrane (CCM) technology for hydrogen production, developed by Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; uop.honeywell.com), is undergoing performance validation testing in partnership with manufacturers of proton-exchange membrane (PEM) and anion-exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzers. Made from both proprietary UOP…
Utilizing rare-earth elements (REEs), such as for permanent magnets in renewable energy applications, requires costly chemical separations that generate large volumes of waste. A process featuring new diglycolamide (DGA)-based ligands and liquid-liquid extraction exhibits more effective separation of individual REEs,…
A pilot facility currently under construction in Charleston, W.Va. will produce renewable acrylonitrile (ACN) without requiring the traditional petroleum-based propylene as feedstock. Since ACN is the raw material used to make carbon fibers, the new route to ACN allows the…
A pilot plant is scheduled to be completed later this year for the production of graphene using a technology known as flash Joule heating (FJH). Developed in the laboratory of James Tour at Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu), FJH involves forcing…
A process that produces methanol from the gases generated at a steel mill will soon be field tested. The process has been under development for the last five years by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy…
Enzymes in a Cage Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; Germany; www.kit.edu) have embedded enzymes into metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and demonstrated for the first time that stabilization by these frameworks is sufficient for use of the enzymes in…
Sinocompound Catalysts Co., Ltd. (Zhangjiagang, China; en.sinocompound.com) says it is now producing the phosphine-based QPhos ligand in kilogram quantities for commercial use. With this ligand now accessible on a large scale, scientists across the globe can incorporate QPhos-based catalysts into…
A new recycling process claims to significantly reduce the complexity of recovering graphite from spent lithium-ion battery (LIB) materials by leaching out impurities rather than leaching out metal. By extracting impurities and recovering high-grade graphite, the Hydro-to-Anode technology, developed by…