On behalf of Aker BioMarine (Oslo, Norway), GEA Group AG (Düsseldorf, Germany) has been contracted to design and deliver the world’s first pilot plant for hydrolyzing krill protein. The client is a biotechnology company based in Norway that fishes for…
Johnson Matthey plc (London, U.K.) announced its acquisition of the assets and intellectual property of Oxis Energy Limited, based near Oxford, UK. Oxis Energy was a lithium-sulfur battery developer with assets which can be adapted for the manufacture of components…
Haltermann Carless (Frankfurt, Germany), a company of the HCS Group GmbH, and a leading supplier of high-value hydrocarbon solutions, will become the world's largest producer of Cyclopentane and Cyclopentane blends following the completion of its new hydrogenation plant at the…
Synhelion S.A. (Lugano, Switzerland; www.synhelion.com) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa; Dübendorf; www.empa.ch) are conducting a joint research project, co-funded by the Swiss Innovation Agency Innosuisse, to further develop a high-temperature energy-storage technology that is…
Hydrogenation is an important reaction in many sectors of the chemical process industries (CPI), but H2 gas is not only expensive, its use requires considerable safety measures to prevent explosions. Significant cost savings could be achieved if hydrogenations did not…
Toxicology testing The world’s first toxicology-testing strategy without animal testing has been approved by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; Paris, France; www.oecd.org). The testing strategy consists of three so-called alternative methods. They can be used to predict…
Next year, construction will begin on an industrial-scale pilot plant to further develop a new process that decomposes methane into H2 and carbon. The process uses a thermo-catalytic decomposition (TCD) technology developed by Hycamite TCD Technologies Oy (Kokkola, Finland; www.hycamite.com).…
A family of oxidation catalysts known as TAML has been revamped to increase activity by several orders of magnitude, even at very dilute catalyst concentrations. Developed by Sudoc (Cambridge, Mass.; www.sudoc.com), these peroxidase-mimicking catalysts present a more environmentally sustainable option…
Buildup of biofouling on membranal surfaces necessitates treatments with corrosive chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid, and even replacement of membrane cartridges, which can be costly in desalination operations. A new coating, developed in the laboratory of Ran Suckevereine at Kinneret…
Until now, waste tires have been used mainly for recovering energy. Only small proportions of the carbon black contained in these tires are recycled, since the mineral ash generated by pyrolysis consists of about 20 wt.% of additives used to…