Waste to chemicals A consortium of companies, including Air Liquide (Paris, France; www.airliquide.com), AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals (Amsterdam, the Netherlands; www.akzonobel.com), Enerkem Inc. (Montreal, Canada; www.enerkem.com) and the Port of Rotterdam, has signed a project development agreement covering initial investments in…
Lithium-ion batteries based on intercalation compound electrodes exhibit poor performance at temperatures below 0°C. Insufficient ionic conductivity and freezing of the electrolyte are generally seen as the main reasons for the poor performance of rechargeable batteries at low temperatures. Although…
A group of Japanese researchers have developed a photocatalytic panel reactor with large area (1 m2) that splits water into H2 and O2 using only natural sunlight. The NEDO (www.nedo.go.jp)-supported project — which includes partners Japan Technological Research Association of…
Polysiloxanes are the main component of important industrial materials, such silicones and organosilicones. In recent years, demand has grown for higher-performance and higher-functionality of organosilicon materials, which require techniques that precisely control the structure of these materials. Although there are…
Polymer coatings are often used to mask the taste of pharmaceuticals, as well as to serve as moisture barriers to granules or tablets. However, the application of polymer solutions requires considerable time and energy for drying after the coating has…
In a project of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki, Japan; www.nedo.go.jp), a collaboration of six industrial, government and academic partners has developed a catalyst for reducing oxides of nitrogen (NOx) from automobile exhaust. Because the…
Using a workhorse technology known as the gas-subcooled process (GSP), most natural gas plants recover between 85 and 90% of ethane in raw natural gas streams. Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) has developed a modular retrofit unit designed to…
Acrylonitrile (ACN) — a precursor in nearly all carbon fibers — is typically produced from propylene and ammonia, but a new method uses biomass-derived second-generation sugars. The process was developed by Southern Research (Durham, N.C.; www.southernresearch.org) and seeks to provide…
A team from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (Ulsan, South Korea; www.unist.ac.kr), led by professor Jong-Beom Baek has introduced a synthetic methodology for fabricating a three-dimensional porous organic network with a high specific surface area via a solid-state…
New membranes developed at Tufts University (Medford, Mass.; www.tufts.edu) can effectively separate similar chemicals based on not only size but on electrostatic charge. “Currently, there are no commercial membranes that are designed to separate organic molecules of similar size but…