Separation Processes
BASF and Heraeus to form a JV for precious-metal recycling solutions in China
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen) and Heraeus Precious Metals (Hanau, both Germany) have agreed to form a 50–50 joint venture (JV) to recover precious metals from spent automotive catalysts. The new company named BASF Heraeus (China) Metal Resource Co., Ltd. will be…
An electrochemical process for producing and recycling VRFB electrolytes
Electrochem Technologies & Materials Inc. (Montreal, Canada; www.electrochem-technologies.com) has recently patented its process for the production and recycling of all vanadium electrolytes (VE) used in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). This electrochemical technology offers a sound and profitable alternative to…
Advanced amine-scrubbing solvent offers carbon-capture advantages
Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.honeywell.com/uop) recently began offering a post-combustion carbon-capture system based on new advanced solvent technology that allows for improved carbon-capture economics for hard-to-abate industries, such as steelmaking, rotary kiln operations (such as cement-making) and natural-gas power…
Linde Engineering Starts Up World’s First Plant for Extracting H2 from Natural Gas Pipelines Using Membrane Technology
Linde Engineering (Pullach, Germany) has officially started up the world’s first full-scale pilot plant in Dormagen, Germany (photo) to showcase how hydrogen can be separated from natural gas streams using Linde’s Hiselect powered by Evonik membrane technology. The process is…
Extracting high-quality MgSO4 from seawater desalination brine
A team of researchers, led by professor Myoung-Jin Kim, from Korea Maritime and Ocean University (Busan, South Korea; www.kmou.ac.kr), has developed a process that recovers calcium-free magnesium sulfate from seawater desalination brine (SDB). The process, described in a recent issue…
Process Commercialization: The 2021 Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award
To honor the efforts of those chemical engineers and their companies that have successfully commercialized a new process for the first time, Chemical Engineering magazine has been be-stowing its Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award since 1933. The aim of the…
Mining REEs from phosphogypsum
Last month, the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State; University Park, Pa.; www.psu.edu), Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland Ohio; www.case.edu) and Clemson University (S.C.; www.clemson.edu) received a $1.7-million National Science Foundation grant for a four-year project to recover rare earth elements…
Recovering REEs from unconventional sources
In October, researchers from Penn State and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL; Calif.; www.llnl.gov) described — in an article published in ACS Central Science — a new method that improves the extraction and separation of rare earth elements (REEs)…
Taking a Holistic Approach to Column Internals
Combining new and improved high-performance column internals and a whole-system view provides a comprehensive solution with more benefits Today’s economic and environmental pressures have chemical processors looking into projects that will help them achieve more throughput from existing columns while…
Facts At Your Fingertips: Cake Filtration Basics
Filtration is arguably the most common unit operation in the chemical process industries (CPI). Filtration processes can be divided into three broad categories: cake filtration, where the incoming slurry contains enough solid material to form a cake on the filter…