Chementator
A hyperstable zeolite catalyst for methanol-to-olefin conversion
The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO, Kawasaki City; Japan; www.nedo.go.jp), in partnership with Japan Technological Research Assn. of Artificial Photosynthetic Chemical Process (ARPChem) members, Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, has developed a hyperstable…
Enhanced perovskites
Researchers from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (Ulsan; www.unist.ac.kr) have found a new way to increase the energy efficiency of metal-air batteries — which are next-generation energy devices — by adding the conducting polymer polypyrrole (pPy). According…
Harvesting agricultural fertilizers from wastewater sludge
Recovery of the essential plant nutrient phosphorus from wastewater can be an effective way to reduce runoff into waterways while avoiding the need to obtain the element from mined minerals. While phosphorus recovery from wastewater effluent performs well, it is…
Scaleup for cellulose nanofiber production
Nippon Paper Industries Co. (NPI; Tokyo, Japan; www.nipponpapergroup.com) has installed the world’s largest facility of its kind for the commercial production of cellulose nanofiber (CNF). Located at its Ishinomaki Works in Miyagi Prefecture, the $16-million investment has a production capacity…
Low-cost solar collectors provide renewable process heat
The first pre-commercial demonstration has started for a system that can provide steam for industrial process heat using solar energy at prices lower than using natural gas. The technology uses solar thermal collectors to generate hot water, air or steam…
Silk-based batteries for medical implants
Researchers from the University of Wollongong (Australia; www.uow.edu.au), led by professor Gordon Wallace and Caiyun Wang, built a battery with electrodes and a solid electrolyte out of silk. Previous attempts at making such biodegradable, dissolvable batteries used natural, biocompatible materials…
Nanorod arrays as photocatalysts
Many ZnO@TiO2 core-shell nanorod arrays (the notation means ZnO is the core inside the TiO2 shell) with good photocatalytic activity have been designed and synthesized. There has been an increasing interest in the design and synthesis of those arrays to…
This product helps vaccine manufacturers reduce downstream processing costs
Biopharmaceutical companies — especially those involved in manufacturing vaccines — spend a lot of effort and money to remove host cell nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) impurities from fermentation batches. The total downstream processing costs can account for up to…
Scaleup for the production of graphene oxides
Graphene-oxide-based materials are lamellar carbon compounds that are approximately 1-nm thick, and are expected to show excellent properties for various functional materials, such as innovative battery materials, lubricants, water-treatment membranes and catalysts. However, because these materials have been synthesized by…
Debut of a coal-to-ethanol plant
China has successfully brought onstream the world’s first demonstration plant that converts coal to ethanol, according to an announcement by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Located at Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum in China’s Shaanxi province, the plant uses process technology that…