Chemical Engineering
Australia unveils national network of hydrogen-technology clusters
A network of regional hydrogen technology clusters has today been unveiled across Australia, as part of a drive to establish a nationwide hydrogen cluster. Spearheaded by National Energy Resources Australia (NERA), the national cluster (which would operate as a virtual…
Lukoil commissions high-viscosity oils plant at Volgogad Refinery complex
Lukoil (Moscow, Russia) has commissioned a new production complex at its Volgograd Refinery. Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Southern Federal District Vladimir Ustinov, Russian Minister of Energy Nikolai Shulginov, Governor of the Volgograd region Andrei Bocharov and President of LUKOIL…
Stepan acquires Invista’s aromatic polyester polyol business
Stepan Co. (Northfield, Ill.) announced that it has purchased Invista's (Wichita, Kan.) aromatic polyester polyol business and associated assets. Included in the transaction are two manufacturing sites, one in Wilmington, NC (United States) and the other in Vlissingen (the Netherlands), and…
Printing sensors onto stickers
Advanced sensors are crucial to any predictive maintenance strategy, and often these sensors must be quickly installed into difficult-to-reach spaces. A novel nanomaterial technology enables predictive sensors that can be “printed” onto flexible stickers. These stickers can be easily attached…
February Chementator Briefs
Ammonia catalyst Clariant Catalyst (Munich, Germany; www.clariant.com) and Casale SA (Lugano, Switzerland; www.casale.ch) have developed a new ammonia synthesis catalyst for sustainable CO2 reduction. Based on Clariant’s AmoMax 10 — a wüstite-based alternative to traditional magnetite-based catalysts — the AmoMax-Casale…
Metal-oxide nanocrystals have applications in lubrication and electronics displays
Pixelligent Technologies Inc. (Baltimore, Md.; www.pixelligent.com) has developed a process for making metal-oxide nanocrystaline materials that have found uses as additives in a variety of industrial lubricants, mixed- and augmented-reality (AR/MR) glasses, and various display technologies. The company’s PixClearProcess results…
Nanoscale uniformity of desalination membranes
Reverse-osmosis (RO) desalination membranes use a polyamide selective layer formed on a microporous support to separate water molecules from salts. Past efforts to characterize the polyamide membrane structure have been limited by the internal variability of the selective layer. Now,…
A microreactor for continuous formation of Grignard reagents
Today, synthetic routes to about 10% of the top 50 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) include one or more Grignard reactions, which are used to form C–C bonds. Normally, the reaction is performed batch-wise in continuous stirred-tank reactors (CSTRs), with Grignard…
A major project targets sustainable urea production
A consortium, led by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO; The Hague; www.tno.nl), has received an exceptional grant of €21 million from the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program to investigate and develop the potential of…
Bacteria for wastewater treatment
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (www.nus.edu.sg), led by associate professor He Jianzhong, have found a new strain of bacterium called Thauera sp. strain SND5, which is capable of simultaneous nitrification and denitrification and phosphate removal from wastewater. The…