Blasch Precision Ceramics (Albany, N.Y.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-548) has commercialized one-piece hex-head ferrules made of 99.6% alumina for applications in steam-methane reformers. The high-purity alumina is becoming popular as an alternative to high-grade metal alloys because it is virtually immune to chemical…
Technology for producing nanowires from titanium dioxide, and for fabricating the wires into free-standing membranes and other shapes, is being offered for sale by Intellectual Property Partners LLC (IP2; Atlanta, Ga.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-540). The membranes are chemically inert and thermally stable…
Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Racah Institute of Physics (Israel; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6899-539) have succeeded in programming polymer sheets to bend and wrinkle by themselves into prescribed structures, such as domes, saddles and sombrero shapes (photo). Their work, described in…
This ball valve provides a high flow Introduced last year, the 7G Series (photo) is a three-piece, 316-stainless-steel ball valve offered in two- and three-way configurations. The valve operates at pressures up to 3,000 psi, has a…
Davy Process Technology Ltd. (DPT; London; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-531), a Johnson Matthey company, has received the first license of its new glycerin-to-propylene glycol (GTPG) process. The first project, planned for the Ashland/Cargill joint venture (CE, June, p. 10), will produce more than…
A new catalyst that promises to cut the cost of producing biodiesel fuel from vegetable oils and animal fats by 30% has been developed by Victor Lin, a chemistry professor at Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-537). The solid catalyst…
Alumina refining by the Bayer process involves the digestion of bauxite ore with caustic soda, which produces “green liquor,†from which alumina is recovered, and a bauxite residue, called red mud, which is stored in large disposal areas. A typical…
A research team from Austria and Sweden have demonstrated that nanowires of a nickel-rhodium alloy exhibit a suprisingly high reactivity to oxygen. Using physical vapor deposition, the researchers have produced quasi one-dimensional rows of Ni atoms on a single-crystal rhodium…
At the end of June, Wuxi NutriRice Co. Ltd. — a joint venture of DSM (Sittard, Netherlands; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-550) and Bühler AG (Uzwil, Switzerland; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-551) — opened the world’s first facility for producing nutritionally enriched rice. Production at the site will…
Wacker Chemie AG (Munich, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6898-552) plans to build the first commercial-scale plant for the production of granular polysilicon for the solar industry at its Berghausen, Germany, site. The 650-m.t./yr facility is expected to start up by the end of…