Air Products (Lehigh Valley, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) has signed a long-term agreement for the production of liquid CO2 with Big River Resources Boyceville, LLC (Boyceville, Wisc.). Air Products will operate a facility to produce 250 ton/d of liquid CO2 at Big…
Professor Takao Masuda and colleagues at Hokkaido University (Sapporo; www.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/labo/cse), in collaboration with Idemitsu Kosan Co. (Idemitsu; Tokyo; both Japan; www.idemitsu.com), have developed a two-step process that converts wood-based lignin into phenols. They believe the achievement could lead to an…
An Australian team has implemented several changes to the conventional organic rankine cycle, resulting in a highly efficient regenerative thermodynamic cycle for producing electricity from waste heat and other thermal sources. The University of Newcastle’s Priority Research Center for Energy…
A metal-free catalyst system involving ionic liquids and doped carbon nanofibers can efficiently reduce carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, offering a cost-effective electrochemical route from CO2 to synthesis gas (syngas), and further, to liquid transportation fuels. A research group at…
A new method for removing uranium and other heavy metals (HMs) from wastewater has been developed by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu; www.uef.fi). The technology has been licensed by Oy Chemec AB (Espoo, Finland; www.chemec.fi), which plans…
Sludge dewatering Last month, Metso Corp. (Helsinki, Finland; www.metso.com) introduced what it claims to be the worlds first advanced solution — both measurements and control system — to optimize sludge dewatering at wastewater treatment plants. The Metso SDO (sludge…
A stabilized palladium catalyst system that can be used for making materials for organic solar cells and pharmaceuticals has been developed by the research groups of of Yoichi Yamada at Riken (Wako city; www.riken.jp) and Shigenori Fujikawa at the International…
Propylene — one of the most important petrochemical feedstocks — has traditionally been supplied, together with ethylene, primarily from naphtha crackers. The recent exploitation of shale gas in North America is causing a shift to ethane cracking as a source…
Plant Watch Praxair starts up carbon-dioxide purification plant at Honeywell site December 10, 2013 — Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com) has started up its new carbon-dioxide (CO2) purification facility at the Honeywell Resins & Chemicals site in Hopewell, Va. Under…
Australian researchers have developed a method of cleaning arsenic out of contaminated water by combining the effects of bacteria and microalgae. Professor Megh Mallavarapu and his team, from the Cooperative Research Center for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment…