Anellotech (Pearl River, N.Y.; www.anellotech.com) recently announced a successful laboratory demonstration of a process to convert mixed plastic waste into a host of useful starting materials for new plastics. The process (diagram), known as Plas-T-Cat, would take place in a…
An international team, led by Mahdokht Shaibani from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia; www.monash.edu), has developed an ultra-high capacity lithium-sulfur battery with better performance and lower environmental impact than current Li-ion batteries. The team includes people from Monash University, University of…
Everactive (Charlottesville, Va.; www.everactive.com) has just launched its Machine Health Monitor (MHM) product for batteryless vibration and temperature sensing of process machinery (photo). The MHM harvests waste energy from small temperature differentials (10°F or greater) and ambient light (100 lux…
An alternative method for processing mixed nickel-cobalt hydroxide precipitate to separate the nickel from cobalt and manganese has been proposed by a team from the Bandung Institute of Technology (Bandung, Indonesia; www.itb.ac.id), the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (Bandung) and the…
Researchers from Indonesia’s Bogor Agricultural University (Bogor, Indonesia; www.ipb.ac.id), the University of Bath (U.K.; www.bath.ac.uk), and the University of Johannesburg (Johannesburg, South Africa; www.uj.ac.za), led by Budi Riza Putra, have developed a low-cost, low-energy and low-maintenance, solar-powered desalination system that…
Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST; Daejeon; www.kaist.ac.kr) have developed a three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous nanostructured catalyst that is said to have a CO2-to-CO conversion rate up to 3.96 times higher than that of conventional…
A semiconducting material synthesized by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI; Troy, N.Y.; www.rpi.edu) could enable new ways of manipulating electronic materials remotely using light. The material, explains RPI professor of materials science and engineering Jian Shi, derives its unique…
Ethylene is a multifunctional phytohormone that regulates growth, ripening and other functions in plants. For example, bananas stored next to apples will ripen quickly due to the ethylene released from the apples, which in turn are triggered to release more…
Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov) recently reported a process for converting various blends of cellulosic biomass and municipal solid waste (MSW) into aliphatic methyl ketones. The team used bio-derived ionic liquids to first break down the…
A team of researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI; Worcester, Mass.; www.wpi.edu) are investigating hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) to simultaneously treat a variety of municipal waste streams and create biofuels. “HTL is an emerging technology for the conversion of various types…