A Japanese consortium has started the construction of the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R), which is said to be the world’s largest hydrogen-based energy system — a step towards a hydrogen-based economy. Located in Namie-cho, Fukushima Prefecture, FH2R will…
Thermal hydrolysis of wastewater sludge before it enters anaerobic digestion units can increase the rate of residuals-to-biogas conversion (biogas production) and increase the feed concentration, the combination of which significantly reduces anaerobic-digester reactor volume. An advanced thermal hydrolysis process (THP)…
Concern with energy efficiency has increased the popularity of window glass coatings that control the amount of sunlight that passes through, as well as windows made of thin solar cells that can turn them into electricity generators. Now researchers from…
Researchers from Penn State University (State College, Pa.; www.psu.edu) and Dalian University of Technology (Dalian, China; www.dlut.edu.cn) have improved the CO2-to-methanol process by using a catalyst that combines copper and palladium. Using a palladium-to-copper atomic ratio range of 0.3 to…
Later this year (Q4 2018), APK AG (Merseburg, Germany; www.apk-ag.de) will start up the first commercial plant to recycle multilayer packaging using the company’s solvent-based Newcycling process. The plant will process 8,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of post-industrial multilayer…
A new pilot project brings together advanced membrane filtration with non-thermal, zero-liquid-discharge (ZLD) solvent exchange to efficiently treat high-salinity produced water from oil-and-gas operations. PetroH2O Recovery (Southlake, Tex.; www.petroh2o.com) is currently building a pilot plant with the capacity to process…
Splitting water with sunlight is a sustainable and environmentally friendly way to make hydrogen, but the conversion efficiency is presently very low, because current photocatalysts only work using ultraviolet radiation — a small fraction (3–5%) of sunlight. Now, a promising…
Bio-isoprene Yokohama Rubber Co. (Tokyo, Japan; www.yokohama.com) has developed what is said to be the world’s first technology capable of efficiently producing isoprene from biomass. The new breakthrough is the result of joint research with Riken (www.riken.jp) and Zeon Corp.…
Plant-based extracts, such as antioxidants, phytochemicals and polyphenols, are used in a number of end-markets, including cosmetics, foods and nutritional supplements. A proprietary, low-polarity, pressurized-water extraction method is set to drastically improve the recovery of useful ingredients from botanical sources.…
Almost all phosphoric acid is produced via the wet-acid process (WAP), which requires relatively pure raw materials and produces large volumes of a potentially hazardous, special waste called phosphogypsum, which is highly regulated in terms of storage and disposal. A…