Olivine, a magnesium-iron silicate mineral, is common in the earth’s subsurface, and can sometimes contain other valuable elements, such as cobalt, manganese and nickel. Olivine has been explored as a possible sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide in carbon-capture methods that…
In this exclusive interview, Christoph Kowitz, president and CEO of Wacker Chemical Corporation, offers his perspective on the goals, challenges and accomplishments of the company, as well as the challenges faced by the chemical process industries Christoph Kowitz is the…
Capital intensity is among the current constraints on industrial-scale fermentation, because the hardware for steam sterilization of bioreactors is complex and expensive. After recently emerging from stealth status, the startup company Biosphere (Oakland, Calif.; www.biosphere.io) has launched a new reactor…
At Aquatech Amsterdam 2025, this company is launching the new Mytex H5L ultrafiltration (UF) membrane (photo), which includes no per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The water treatment industry faces increasing pressure to develop alternatives to polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes, which…
Many separation processes depend on chemical or thermal principles, such as solvent extraction or distillation, but in some cases, mechanical methods can provide effective separations with lower cost and energy requirements. Eirex (Vaughan, Ont., Canada; www.eirex.ca) has developed a proprietary…
This article presents a summary and explanation of an update to the Hazard Communication Standard The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its final rule on May 20, 2024, updating the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS). OSHA requires chemical…
Thin gold films offer a broad range of benefits for electronics due to their high electrical conductivity and transparency. Current manufacturing methods are unable to achieve gold films thinner than 10 nm, and are also limited in the area and…
Developing sustainable pathways to ethylene — among the world’s most widely used chemicals — is a key element in decarbonizing the process industries. A new electrolysis technology developed by CERT Systems (Toronto, Ont., Canada; www.co2cert.com) can produce ethylene from CO2…
In December 2024, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL; Richland, Wash.; www.pnnl.gov) announced a three-year collaborative project with vehicle-tire manufacturer Bridgestone (Tokyo, Japan; www.bridgestone.com) to scale up a thermocatalytic process for converting renewably derived ethanol to n-butene. Conventionally, n-butene is…
Construction is imminent for a carbon-capture project aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from steel production while producing carbon-neutral calcium carbonate. At the U.S. Steel (Pittsburgh, Pa.; www.ussteel.com) manufacturing facility in Gary, Ind., a carbon-capture system designed by CarbonFree (San Antonio,…