Fundamental to the chemical process industries (CPI) — whether specialty or bulk chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food products, minerals processing, environmental protection or other products or activities — is the need for mixing. The wide variety and complexity of mixing…
In today’s global marketplace, multinational companies are almost expected to manufacture products at different sites around the world. Try as they might to build plants that are identical and employ the same procedures, there are no guarantees the results will…
Although chemically identical to vegetation-derived cellulose, bacterial cellulose (BC) has a different tertiary structure, which imparts a number of unique — and commercially important — properties. For example, BC is nontoxic and biocompatible, and has a large water-holding capacity, which…
It is now fairly well established that mass- and heat-transfer efficiency, reaction selectivity and yield can be improved using microreactor technology (CE, July 2001, pp. 27–35). But the small channel dimensions (below one square millimeter) that are responsible for the…
A new phosphoric acid that contains less than 100 parts per billion of 30 different metal ions is now commercially available from Febex S.A. (Box, Switzerland; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5828-539), the phosphorous specialties subsidiary of CECA Arkema Group (Paris). The new grade of…
Using a diamond anvil cell to create high (up to 50 GPa) pressures, and a laser to create high (up to 2,000 K) temperatures, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL; Calif.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5828-543), the Carnegie Inst. of Washington, and the…
At present, around 540 billion Nm3 of hydrogen is produced worldwide, and the trend is upward (Hydrogen: The Real Action Is Today, CE, February, pp. 28ff). The numerous chemical-process and other industrial applications of this colorless, odorless gas…
By combining a high-resolution scanning electron microscope and an ion-beam microscope into a single device, researchers at the Max Plank Institute for Iron Research (Düsseldorf, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5828-545) are able to “see” the inner structure of nanomaterials, biological matter, and high-performance…
Kokusan Co. (Tokyo; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-531) has developed a new type of emulsifier that uses centrifugal force to drive mixtures through specially designed nozzles. The system is said to be less complex than conventional high-shear mixing devices, and operates at much lower…
BASF AG (Ludwigshafen, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-546) has developed a new process for producing chiral intermediates for pharmaceutical products. Without disclosing any details, BASF says the process is based on dehydrogenase enzymes for making optically active styrene oxides and aliphatic alcohols. The…