Hiroshi Abe and colleagues at Biochemical Group of Research Institute for Innovation in Sustainable Chemistry, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Tsukuba, Japan; www.aist.go.jp) have discovered a strain of acetic-acid bacteria (which normally oxidize ethanol into acetic acid)…
At Achema last month (May 11–15; Frankfurt, Germany), Sulzer Chemtech AG (Winterthur, Switzerland; www.sulzerchemtech.com) launched a new static mixer, the SMX plus. For homogenizing viscous fluid, the new SMX plus has about half the pressure drop of the company’s standard…
Today, stakeholders seeking to produce platform chemicals from renewable feedstocks are evaluating competing routes — based on, for example, oxidation, reduction, selective bond breaking, selective bond formation, and the selective dehydration of sugars — for breaking down complex starting materials…
Because of the difficulties associated with separating it from lignocellulosic feedstocks, “lignin has typically been burned by papermakers to produce process heat or power. This is a tragic waste of a good source of carbon,” says Joseph J. Bozell, associate…
Dow is currently building a 770-million-lb/yr train to produce Dowlex linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) in the middle of a sugar cane field in Brazil. Once online, the unit will be the first fully integrated sugar-cane-to-polyethylene complex in the world, according…
As it is with all chemical processors, the current economic climate is forcing batch processors to produce more saleable product at a better profit margin from the same assets. Increasing flexibility, reliability and visibility while decreasing batch cycle times via…
Cast parts, such as engine blocks, are typically made by pouring molten metal into so-called cores — sand-based molds that have internal passages for the component to be cast. Such casting cores are typically made by reacting sand with organic…
SynGest, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.; www.syngest.com) plans to commercialize a process for the production of ammonia from biomass by the fall of 2011. The first plant, to be located in Menlo, Iowa, will convert 150,000 ton/yr of corncobs into 50,000…
A new procedure for making uniform, metallic nanoparticles has been developed by the research group of Kousuke Mori, an associate professor at Osaka University (www.mat.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp), with support from New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki, both Japan). The…
The exceptional properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), such as high tensile strength and high thermal and electrical conductivities, have suggested a number of applications, including lightweight materials for ballistics protection, actuators for muscles or artificial muscles, filaments for light sources,…