Latest News: Technologies
A solar-powered electrolysis process extracts lithium from seawater
Today, all commercial lithium is sourced from ores or brines on land, where the total lithium reserves amount to 14 million tons. In contrast, the oceans contain 230 billion tons of lithium, although the lithium concentration in seawater is very…
MOF-coated mesh membranes separate oil from water
Current oil-water separation technologies, such as centrifugation, filtration, dissolved air flotation, distillation, oil skinners, adsorption and electrochemical methods, are of low efficiency and consume a lot of energy during complex separation processes. Mesh membranes have attracted much interest lately, and…
Progress toward using ammonia as a hydrogen carrier for fuel cells
In order for ammonia to serve as a hydrogen carrier, it is necessary to develop separation techniques that can reliably recover H2 from the decomposition of NH3 with sufficient purity for operating proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. A step in…
Mechanically strong aerogels get closer to commercialization
Aerogels — ultralight, insulating and heat-resistant nanoporous solids — offer benefits in many applications, but commercially available aerogels are typically limited to just two formats: particles and blankets. Aerogel Technologies, LLC (Boston, Mass.; www.aerogeltechnologies.com) is currently constructing a pilot plant…
Carbon-free power: Ammonia synthesized from renewable power and hydrogen
A collaboration between JGC Corp. (JGC, Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.com), the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the National Institute of Technology, Numazu College, and JGC’s subsidiary, JGC Catalysts & Chemicals Ltd., (JGC Group), under the auspices of…
Microwave-plasma platform engineers solid-material properties
A new production process for engineering a range of nano- and microstructured solid materials can reduce the costs of manufacturing the materials compared to conventional “wet-chemistry” approaches, and can allow novel chemistries that are not accessible through traditional methods. Developer…
A bi-functional catalyst enables one-step, ‘tunable’ F-T synthesis of liquid fuels
An integrated catalytic process for the direct, Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) conversion of synthesis gas (syngas) into different types of liquid fuels, without subsequent hydro-refining post-treatments of F-T waxes, has been developed by the research group of professor Noritatsu Tsubaki at the…
A one-step solution for remediating two challenging groundwater contaminants
A research team from the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT; Newark, N.J.; www.njit.edu) Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science has discovered a new bacterium that may help to alleviate concerns about two of the most pervasive and toxic groundwater…
Printing 2-D piezoelectric materials for sensors and energy harvesting
A new, inexpensive method to print large-scale sheets of two-dimensional (2-D) piezoelectric material has been developed by a team from RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia; www.rmit.edu.au) led by professor of electronic engineering Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh (now a professor of chemical engineering at…
Bio-based adsorbent material removes PFAS compounds from water
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been widely used for high-performance fire-fighting and in the manufacture of durable goods for their chemical inertness, non-stick properties and fire resistance. They have also raised health concerns because they do not degrade in…