Latest News: Technologies
Electrochemical separation and compression of hydrogen
Hydrogen gas is used widely in industry, including in metal annealing, float-glass production and silicon wafer manufacturing, among others, but greater than 80% of the H2 used for these processes is typically vented or flared as waste. A new electrochemical…
Nitrogen fixation under ambient conditions
The transition-metal-catalyzed reduction of nitrogen is an alternative to the traditional energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process for producing ammonia. In these reaction systems, metallocenes or potassium graphite are typically used as the reducing reagent, and conjugate acids of pyridines or related compounds…
High-strength Al alloy for 3-D printing is moving into commercial production
The first high-strength, wrought-aluminum alloy powder designed for use in additive manufacturing (3-D printing) applications is moving into commercial production. The powder was developed by HRL Laboratories (Malibu, Calif.; www.hrl.com) for use in laser powder-bed fusion 3-D printers. The company…
Chementator Briefs
Depolymerization Last month, DuPont Teijin Films Ltd. (DTF; Contern, Luxembourg; www.dupontteijinfilms.com) launched its new LuxCR depolymerization process, which upcycles post-consumer waste into a variety of biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET) films. The LuxCR process depolymerizes mechanically recovered PET flake back…
Impinging jet mixers are applied to bio-crude harvesting from algae
Microalgae have been investigated as a source of “bio-crude” — fatty acid molecules (lipids) that can be refined into renewable transportation fuels — but harvesting lipids from the algae cells economically remains the most challenging and energy-intensive step in the…
A low-temperature catalyst for dry methane reforming
A catalyst that performs low-temperature reforming of methane with carbon dioxide (dry methane reforming) into synthesis gas (syngas) has been developed by Japanese researchers, led by Hideki Abe at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS, Tsukuba City, www.nims.go.jp), in…
Nano-coated salts for energy storage
A new energy-storage process has begun operations at a large-scale pilot plant in Berlin, Germany. At the combined heat and power (CHP) facility of Swedish energy company Vattenfall, SaltX Technology AB (Hägersten, Sweden; www.saltxtechnology.com) constructed one 0.5-MW/10-MWh energy-storage unit using…
Converting CO2 to carbon at mild conditions
An international research team led by RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia; www.rmit.edu.au) has developed a technique for efficiently converting CO2 to carbon. The team included researchers from the University of Münster (Germany), Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (China), North Carolina…
Enzyme engineering enables bio-based hydrogen peroxide
Borne out of a cancer research project at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge; www.mit.edu), a new enzymatic process technology can co-produce gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide without the safety risks and complexity of typical large-scale peroxide-manufacturing processes. Solugen Inc. (Houston;…
This process improves blends of starch-based plastic with conventional polyolefins
Thermoplastic starch, a biodegradable polysaccharide, is an attractive material for environmentally friendly plastics, but its cost and molecular properties have prevented it from being used in thin films. A process for a new starch plastic resin allows the material to…