April Chementator Briefs
Nanocellulose pilot Sappi Ltd. (Johannesburg; South Africa; www.sappi.com) will build a pilot-scale plant for low-cost…
Lignin to adipic acid
A new study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL; Golden, Colo.; www.nrel.gov) demonstrates the…
Biomass pretreatment approach can reduce enzyme requirements
Biomass is a recalcitrant, heterogeneous matrix of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin that resists microbial and…
Making fuels from almost any organic material
Adgex Ltd. (Sydney, Australia; www.adgex.com) is marketing a plant, tradenamed “Green Blaze,” for processing organic…
End-to-end demonstration of CO2-to-ethanol process achieved
Joule Unlimited (Bedford, Mass.; www.jouleunlimited.com) announced recently that it has achieved end-to-end production of ethanol…
Modified MOFs could cut carbon-capture costs in half
Chemists from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley; www.berkeley.edu) have modified a metal-organic framework…
MOF material improves CO2-capture effectiveness
Industrial CO2 capture is currently done by absorption in liquid amines, such as monoethanolamine. However,…
A new primary aluminum-production process to be piloted
Last month, Hydro ASA (www.hydro.com) entered into a contract with Multiconsult (both Oslo, Norway; www.multionsult.no)…
Making bio-based PET monomer from furfural
The research group of Yuya Tachibana at Gunma University (Gunma, Japan; greenpolymer.chem-bio.st.gunma-u.ac.jp) has developed a…
A patented process makes stabilized proteins
XstalBio Ltd. (Glasgow, U.K.; www.xstalbio.com) has recently been issued a patent (US 8,932,715) covering the…
Scaleup for an alternative route to PC monomer
Earlier this year, Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/chemicals) has developed a new process…
Commercial-scale production for bio-based levulinic acid
This summer, GFBiochemicals Green Future S.r.l. (Milan, Italy; www.gfbiochemicals.com) will start commercial-scale production of bio-based…