A process for in-situ oxidation of hydrocarbons in low-quality oilfields, and subsequent gas separation, offers a path to generating hydrogen for fuel and chemicals that avoids any greenhouse gas emissions. Known as Hygienic Earth Energy (HEE), the process has been…
Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons and oxygenates on copper involves reduction to a carbon monoxide adsorbate followed by transformation to hydrocarbons and oxygenates. To ensure the sustainability of the process, the electrochemical CO2 reduction is typically conducted in…
High-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) using a chiral stationary phase (CSP) is the most effective method for separating enantiomers of chiral molecules. However, the limited number of CSPs available puts a constraint on applying this technology universally. Now, researchers from the…
Membrane-based forward osmosis (FO) desalination could be a lower-cost alternative to conventional reverse osmosis (RO) technology, which can desalinate ocean water effectively, but requires electricity to drive the separation, and so remains expensive. Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL;…
The water-gas shift reaction (WGS; in which water vapor is reacted with carbon monoxide over a copper-chromium-iron-oxide catalyst to yield hydrogen and CO2) is of paramount importance to the chemical industry, as it is a primary route to producing H2…
Recently, Tosoh Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.tosoh.com) has applied a new, proprietary oxocatalyst in the oxychlorination process for making ethylene dichloride (EDC) from ethylene, HCl, and O2 in its vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) manufacturing process. The performance boost anticipated from simulation…
After four years of project development and execution, the new PolyFuel unit at Petrobrazi petroleum refinery in Romania has been started-up and is fully functional since April 2019. Based on the PolyFuel technology licensed by Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net), the…
A team from RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia; www.rmit.edu.au) and the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (Warangal, India; www.nitw.ac.in) has developed a cost-effective and eco-friendly way of producing graphene using a eucalyptus polyphenol solution extracted from eucalyptus bark. RMIT’s professor Suresh…
Nanofiltration Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toray.com) has created what is claimed to be the world’s highest-level nanofiltration membrane. The new membrane triples the permeation performance of conventional models while enhancing ion and organic-compound separation from aqueous solutions. In developing…
Scientists have long sought ways to take advantage of the high strength of natural silk protein in new materials, but its incorporation has been hindered by the inability to stabilize the protein in water. Now, a company known as Evolved…