A microwave vessel heating system — said to be the first commercial, industrial-scale system of its kind — has been developed by Marion Mixers (Marion; www.marionmixers.com) in partnership with AMTek Microwave (Cedar Rapids, both Iowa; www.4amtek.com) with patent pending technology…
Oji Paper Co. (OJI; www.ojipaper.co.jp), in collaboration with Nippon Steel Engineering Co. (www.nsc-eng.co.jp) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; all Tokyo, Japan; www.aist.go.jp), has started pilot testing of a new, integrated process for making cellulose-based…
A reduction of CO2 emissions of 50% can be achieved in steelmaking, using renewable carbon from biomass, according to The Australian Steel Industry CO2 Breakthrough Program, an R&D program conducted by a team from: BlueScope Steel Research (Port Kembla, New…
Fine polyester fibers Teijin Fibers Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; teijinfiber.com), the core company of the Teijin Groups polyester-fiber business, is commercializing a new version of its Nanofront, high-strength polyester nanofiber with a diameter of 400 nm — nearly half that…
Harnessing renewable energy by catalytic dissociation and synthesis of ammonia has shown promise for distributed power applications, according to a team from the Center for Energy at the University of Western Australia (www.uwa.edu.au), led by professor Dongke Zhang. In the…
Professor Kenichiro Itami and coworkers at at Nagoya University (Nagoya, Japan; synth.chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp) have developed a new, next-generation type of cross-coupling reaction for synthesizing biphenyl compounds — one of the most important backbone structures for pharmaceutical and electronics chemicals. The chemists…
Acidity is a critical parameter in the chemical process industries, and accurate measurements of pH can be important indicators for process quality control. A refreshed understanding of pH measurement can help to overcome process-specific challenges to measurement and to select…
An organosilica material with unique structural properties due to its nanoscale architecture has been used to extract hydrocarbons and other organic contaminants from water. Marketed as Osorb by ABS Materials Inc. (Wooster, Ohio; www.absmaterials.com), the nanostructured glass represents a platform…
A group from the University of Canterbury (www.canterbury.ac.nz), and Industrial Research Ltd. (both Christchurch, New Zealand; www.irl.cri.nz), has produced hydrogen from ethanol via steam reforming in a non-thermal plasma reactor. The project is part of an Industrial Research concept called…
A team from the School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia (Penang; www.eng.usm.my) has carried out a study for optimizing non-catalytic supercritical (SC) methanol extraction and transesterification of Jatropha curcas seeds to produce biodiesel fuel. Jatropha curcas is a species…