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Business News: July 2025

Plant Watch Tosoh to construct new chloroprene rubber plant in Japan June 13, 2025 — Tosoh Corp. (Tokyo; www.tosoh.com) plans to increase its production capacity for chloroprene rubber (CR) by adding a second CR production facility at its Nanyo Complex…

Using water to break ultra-strong PFAS bonds

Water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) compounds is one of the most significant environmental and health issues globally. In particular, effectively breaking the carbon-fluorine bonds that are paramount to the stability and persistent nature of PFAS is extremely…

Hydrogen storage using lignin-based jet fuel demonstrated

Hydrogen can be a zero-emissions fuel source, but its storage and transportation are costly and problematic, limiting its widespread use. Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs), in which hydrogen atoms are chemically bound to liquid hydrocarbons via reversible hydrogenation reactions, offer…

Adapting thin-film polymers for membrane separation of liquid hydrocarbons

Thin-film polymer membranes have been very effective for industrial-scale desalination of seawater, but have not been used for separation of liquid hydrocarbon mixtures because oil-separation membranes tend to absorb oil components and swell, which eliminates their size-sieving ability to separate…

New lithium-battery production concept offers smaller footprint and higher energy efficiency

The market for lithium-ion batteries continues to grow, driven by demands for consumer electronics, renewable energy storage and electric vehicles. The manufacture of these batteries is itself energy-intensive, with production steps that typically involve creating a slurry for a wet-coating…

A new demonstration plant expands the horizons of post-consumer recycling

Operations are planned to start up soon at a first-of-its-kind recycling demonstration plant in Monthey, Switzerland. Employing a proprietary reaction technology developed by DePoly S.A. (Sion, Switzerland; www.depoly.co), the plant is set to treat up to 500 tons/yr of polyethylene…

Sustainability aids business success

Last month, this column discussed the continuing momentum of sustainability projects in industry, citing a couple of reports that showed sustainability to be valuable to business. More recent findings support those conclusions. Research by Aras (www.aras.com), a product lifecyle-management provider,…

Avoiding Problems in Handling Solid Waste

Bulk-solid waste materials present unique handling challenges. Presented here is a discussion on how to navigate those challenges, along with some characterization strategies to avoid them Across industry sectors, solid waste materials are common and highly varied. The complexities of…

Small-angle X-ray scattering reveals catalyst degradation routes for CO2RR

The CO2 electrochemical reduction reaction (CO2RR) has intrigued scientists for decades as a way to make fuel and chemicals from the greenhouse gas CO2. Prior research identified copper as a CO2RR catalyst, and has revealed the active sites where electrocatalysis…

This biosolids gasification technology also destroys PFAS

A new gasification process designed for the disposal of biosolids is also capable of destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contaminants, which are typically very resistant to conventional treatment processes. Aries Clean Technologies (Franklin, Tenn.; www.ariescleantech.com) recently validated its fluidized-bed…