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This process may produce lithium from borate process waste

Rio Tinto (London, U.K.; www.riotinto.com) will shortly start up a pilot plant to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate from 90 years’ accumulated plant waste at its U.S. Borax operation in Boron, Calif. The waste is clay from the production of borates,…

A microbe for making chemicals and biofuels from brown algae

A research team from Pohang University of Science and Technology (Pohang, South Korea; www.postech.ac.kr), led by professor Gyoo Yeol Jung, and Seoul National University (Seoul, South Korea; www.useoul.edu), led by professor Sang Woo Seo, has developed a new microorganism —…

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Solvent chemistry is key for cleaner oil-sands processing

Petroteq Energy Inc. (Sherman Oaks, Calif.; www.petroteq.energy) has achieved continuous operation at its oil-sands processing site in Utah, which is said to be the first commercial plant in the U.S. to extract and upgrade crude oil from U.S. oil sands.…

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Novel catalyst for transforming polyethylene into lubricants and waxes

Efficient upcycling of post-consumer plastics, such as polyethylene (PE), is a key sustainability objective. New research by a team at Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne, Ill.; www.anl.gov) and Ames Laboratory (Ames, Iowa; www.ameslab.gov) has resulted in a novel catalyst material that…

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Electro-swing adsorption separates CO2 from mixed gases at any concentration

Effectively separating carbon dioxide from combustion exhaust or directly from air is essential for realizing net reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, but existing technologies for CO2 capture (such as CO2-scrubbing with amines), involve parasitic energy losses, which make carbon-capture economics unfavorable.…

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Machine learning helps achieve a five-fold boost in formaldehyde yield

Chemistry professor Oliver Trapp and his colleagues at the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München (LUM; Germany; www.en.uni-muenchen.de) have developed a new workflow for the production of formaldehyde, which is based on an algorithm constructed with the aid of machine learning (ML), optimization…

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Modifying waste biomass to catalytically degrade pollutants

Sewage and wastewater often contain pollutants and environmental hormones (endocrine disruptors) that can have a negative effect on the environment and on human health. Catalysts currently used to destroy such pollutants involve high costs. And up to now, research has…

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Chementator Briefs

Natural wax coating Researchers from Aalto University (Finland; www.aalto.fi) have developed a new way of making garments water-resistant, without using toxic chemicals. The treatment is non-toxic, and does not impair breathability. The coating uses carnauba wax from Brazilian palm-tree leaves.…

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Rechargeable MnO2-Zn batteries with a higher voltage

Researchers at the City University of New York Energy Institute (ccny.cuny.edu) have developed a low-cost battery based on manganese dioxide and zinc that reaches voltages of greater than 2 V, a first-time achievement that could allow batteries with these low-cost…

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A control valve with built-in flowmeter

On September 19, Focus-On (Dordrecht, the Netherlands; www.focus-on-process.com) — a new, 50:50 joint-venture (JV) of Samson AG (Frankfurt am Main; www.samson.de) and Krohne GmbH & Co. KG (Duisburg, both Germany; www.krohne.com) — introduced its new “intelligent process node,” a device…