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…
Using a simple, ligand-free palladium catalyst system, researchers at McGill University (Montreal, Que., Canada; www.mcgill.ca) have demonstrated that metal carbonylation — a core chemical reaction for many industrial products — can be used to synthesize ketones directly from hydrocarbons. The…
Last month, the so-called Hybrit initiative (www.hybritdevelopment.com) was given the go-ahead to build a pilot plant for making fossil-free steel. The announcement follows a pre-feasibility study conducted by Swedish partners SSAB AB (Stockholm; www.ssab.com), LKAB (Luleå; www.lkab.com) and Vattenfall AB…
The research group of professor Masafumi Hirando at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT; Koganei City, Japan; www.tuat.ac.jp) has performed the world’s first one-pot synthesis of conjugated polyenes, which normally require at least seven steps by conventional methods. This…