Next April, a six-year, €4-million project will begin that aims to develop an electrochemical process to recover halogens (chlorine, bromine and fluorine) from waste products. Funded as part of the CZS Breakthrough program of the Carl Zeiss Foundation (CZS; Heidenheim…
A new recycling process has been developed for scrap polypropylene (PP), a waste stream that is currently underserved by many plastics-recycling facilities. The process, developed by PureCycle (Orlando, Fla.; www.purecycle.com), aims to “wash the plastic molecules” using a series of…
The use of hydrogen brings unique safety challenges, especially explosion risks. As its use grows across industries, effective explosion protection becomes essential. Understanding the principles, practices, and technologies behind explosion protection ensures reliable operations and safeguards people, equipment, and the…
Batch reactors are widely used throughout the chemical process industries (CPI), and the basic design has not radically changed for many decades. Nevertheless, precise temperature control of batch processes continues to be a common problem. Now, a new design of…
The startup company RenewCO2 (Piscataway, N.J.; www.renewco2.com) has developed a catalyzed electrochemical process for selectively producing monoethylene glycol (MEG) in a single step using byproduct carbon dioxide from other processes as feedstock. MEG is important industrially because it is the…
Magnesium metal is important for several emerging potential sustainability-related applications, including carbon capture, low-carbon cement and energy storage. These potential applications are driving efforts to efficiently produce magnesium hydroxide, the raw material for manufacturing Mg metal. It is possible to…
Catalysts by AM In late September, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) introduced X3D, a new additive-manufacturing (AM; 3D printing) technology for shaping catalysts. Catalysts produced with this technology feature an open structure, resulting in a reduction of the pressure drop…
Scientists at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL; Upton, N.Y.; www.bnl.gov) and collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL; Laurel Hollow, N.Y.; www.cshl.edu) have genetically engineered a strain of duckweed (Lemna japonica) to produce high yields of…
Hollow silica particles (HSPs) are materials of interest for thermal insulation applications because of their very low thermal conductivity, but the particles pose health hazards and the powder is impractical to use, so scientists have been trying to incorporate HSPs…
Last month, Metso Outotec Corp. (Helsinki, Finland; www.mogroup.com) introduced NextGen Pelletizing — a visionary concept for the next generation of iron-ore pelletizing plants that strive to be carbon neutral and autonomous. According to the company, the combination of innovations —…