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Chemical Engineering

DuPont technology director receives Barnes award

DuPont (Wilmington, Del.; www.dupont.com) Global Technology Director Henry Bryndza today received the Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management at the 2016 American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in San Diego, California.  Bryndza was recognized for his…

CE Bookshelf: March 2016

Belonging Nowhere: An Engineer in India and the United States. By Jimmy Mathur. Outskirts Press, Denver, Colo., 2015, 257 pages, $17.95. The Engineering Communication Manual. By Richard House, Richard Layton, Jessica Livingston and Sean Moseley. Oxford University Press, 2016, 496…

Chementator Briefs

Bio-based PET Later this year, Suntory Holdings Ltd. (Osaka, Japan; www.suntory.com) will start up a demonstration plant in Silsbee, Tex. for the production of 100% bio-based PET bottles. The company will introduce these PET with its Suntory Beverage & Food’s…

Progress for high-efficiency ammonia-cogeneration plant

A process that produces anhydrous ammonia while also generating thermal power has reached a milestone toward commercialization. In January, Amec Foster Wheeler (AFW; London, U.K.; www.amecfw.com) was awarded a project development and design contract for the world’s first plant to…

Monetizing coke-oven gas, while capturing CO2

A process that converts process gases, generated during the production of metallurgical coke, into marketable chemicals is being developed in a pilot plant installed on the works site of thyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG (www.thyssenkrupp-steel-europe.com) in Duisburg, Germany. The process is…

Novel cathode material for lithium-ion batteries

Initial validation testing has been completed on a novel cathode material that could lower the manufacturing costs and lengthen the lifetimes of lithium-ion batteries. The new cathode material represents a departure from the traditional Li-ion intercalation chemistry used in current…

Making more carbon fibers for less

An efficient, energy-saving process for making carbon fibers (diagram) is being developed by a collaboration team of the University of Tokyo, the Institute of Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Toray Industries, Inc., Teijin Ltd., Toho Tenax Co. and Mitsubishi Rayon…

Extracting platinum metals

The traditional method for recovering platinum-group metals (Pt, Pa, Ir, Os, Rh, Ru and Au) is not economically viable in the case of low-grade deposits, but researchers from the Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University (Perth; www.curtin.edu.au) and the…

Making aerogel absorbants from wastepaper

A team from the National University of Singapore (www.nus.edu.sg), led by assistant professor Duong Hai Minh from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, has succeeded in converting paper waste into cellulose aerogels that are nontoxic, ultralight, flexible, extremely strong, and water…

Bio-based BTX test facility breaks ground in Texas

Construction has begun on a testing and development facility for a bio-based process to produce benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX) from woody biomass. The test facility is intended to demonstrate all unit operations and prove process economics for the Bio-TCat…