Latest News: Technologies
A way to dry compressed air more cost effectively
After years of testing and development, Atlas Copco Compressors LLC (Rock Hill, S.C.; www.atlascopco.us) will begin production of a new air-dryer technology by the end of this year. Unlike conventional drying systems, the MDG rotary drum dryer guarantees a stable…
An improved anti-corrosion coating for steel
Using zinc-based coatings to protect galvanized steel from corrosion has been standard practice in the steel industry for decades, but these processes have several key disadvantages. First, achieving longer corrosion performance requires thicker layers of zinc, which raises costs and…
Wastewater concentrator uses waste heat to lower treatment costs
Landfill leachate and other challenging wastewaters incur rising treatment and disposal costs. Technology developed by Heartland Water Technology, Inc. (Hudson, Mass.; www.heartlandtech.com) can lower costs for treating wastewater by slashing wastewater volumes by 95% or more, using waste heat as…
Chementator Briefs
H2SO4 Catalyst BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) has introduced a new catalyst for making sulfuric acid. The cesium-based O4-115 Quattro catalyst has a unique geometrical shape — a combination of four strands — leading to a 30% greater catalytic surface…
Save energy and water with a system that generates boiler makeup water
In boilers, silicates can volatilize with the generated steam and then form silicate glass on turbine blades, causing an imbalance. Therefore, the concentration of silicates in boiler circuits must be reduced to below 0.5 parts per million (ppm). The conventional…
Reduce oxygen waste in ozone generation with this O2-recovery system
A new adsorption-based technology can separate ozone from oxygen in O3-generating systems, allowing recycling of unreacted O2. In corona-discharge O3 generation, O2 molecules are split by passage through an electric field to create free oxygen atoms, which quickly combine with…
Ceramic pump makes molten metals motive
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Ga. Tech; Atlanta; www.gatech.edu) have demonstrated a precision-machining technique to manufacture an entire pumping loop from materials that can withstand temperatures as high as 1,400–1,600°C. These materials are typically thought to be too…
Chementator Briefs
Trash bags Barrier films used in food packaging are difficult to recycle effectively, because they often contain multiple polymers that are not compatible with one another in the mixing steps required for the recycling process. Now, trash bags made from…
Lower costs for converting alkylation units from hydrofluoric to sulfuric acid
For petroleum refineries, the cost of converting hydrofluoric-acid-based alkylation units to the relatively safer sulfuric-acid-based alkylation process (diagram) has been cost-prohibitive and has lacked specific economic benefits. Now, DuPont (Wilmington, Del.; www.dupont.com) has developed a low-cost approach to converting existing…
Extremophilic microbes enable new methane pathways
Microbes inhabiting the extreme environments thousands of feet below the earth’s surface possess unique properties not encountered elsewhere. A research consortium of South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT; Rapid City; www.sdsmt.edu), University of Oklahoma (Norman) and Montana State…