Chementator
Metals from nodules on seabed offer environmental advantages
Small-scale pilot testing has begun for a process that extracts nickel, manganese, cobalt and copper from nodules collected from the surface of the Pacific Ocean seafloor. Obtaining the metals from the seabed nodules has advantages over mining land-based ores because…
New material promises to enhance performance of gas-separation membranes
Harnessing its polymer technology and carbon-fiber expertise has enabled Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toray.com) to create a porous carbon fiber with uniformly continuous pores (diagram) — claimed to be a world’s first. Using this fiber as a support layer…
A Pt-free electrode promises to cut costs for fuel cells and metal-air batteries
Hiroya Abe and colleagues at Tohoku University (Sendai, www.tohoku.ac.jp) and Hokkaido University have developed a method to fabricate a highly active catalyst electrode for performing the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in fuel cells and metal-air batteries. Currently, such fuel cells…
Chementator Briefs
Direct route to PG Dow Inc. (Midland, Mich.; www.dow.com) and Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) have entered into an exclusive technology partnership to develop a new process to make propylene glycol (PG). The key to the so-called Hyprosyn process…
Pursuing methanation as a means to recycle CO2
By the end of fiscal 2019, commissioning and continuous operation will begin on a new methanation plant that will produce 8 Nm3/h of methane from CO2 and H2. The test facility, located at the Koshijihara Plant of Inpex’s Nagaoka Field…
Lower-cost engineered composites for transportation infrastructure applications
Engineered cementitious composites (ECCs) are concrete-like materials with exceptional ductility (up to 500 times) and flexural strengths (2–3 times) greater than conventional concrete. The flexibility and strength of ECCs could benefit transportation infrastructure (for example, the ductility of ECCs could…
Geothermal brine may be a new U.S. source of lithium
Currently the U.S. has only one domestic source of lithium, a vital element in lithium-ion batteries and other products, but this could be changed through processes being developed by two California companies. Furthest along is a project of EnergySource Minerals…
This process may produce lithium from borate process waste
Rio Tinto (London, U.K.; www.riotinto.com) will shortly start up a pilot plant to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate from 90 years’ accumulated plant waste at its U.S. Borax operation in Boron, Calif. The waste is clay from the production of borates,…
A microbe for making chemicals and biofuels from brown algae
A research team from Pohang University of Science and Technology (Pohang, South Korea; www.postech.ac.kr), led by professor Gyoo Yeol Jung, and Seoul National University (Seoul, South Korea; www.useoul.edu), led by professor Sang Woo Seo, has developed a new microorganism —…
Solvent chemistry is key for cleaner oil-sands processing
Petroteq Energy Inc. (Sherman Oaks, Calif.; www.petroteq.energy) has achieved continuous operation at its oil-sands processing site in Utah, which is said to be the first commercial plant in the U.S. to extract and upgrade crude oil from U.S. oil sands.…