Last month, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; www.mhi.co.jp) and Tokyo Gas Co. (both Tokyo, Japan; www.tokyo-gas.co.jop) began marketing a jointly developed 1,000-kW gas-engine cogeneration system. Based on the conventional 930-kW system, the new systems engine operates at a reduced speed…
Acetic acid from syngas A new process for the production of acetic acid claims to be more efficient and cost-effective than current technologies. Carbonylation of methanol has been the leading acetic acid technology for several decades, but BP plc…
The effluent discharged by domestic industries in Japan amounts to approximately 11.1 billion ton/yr. Most of this waste is comprised of relatively low concentrations of organic matter. Today, most of this effluent is treated by aerobic biotreatment (activated sludge). However,…
A research team from the University of Western Australia (Perth; www.uwa.edu.au), led by professor Dongke Zhang, has pioneered the application of higher plants for new-generation biofuel production. Metabolic engineering of Arabidopsis thaliana — a small flowering plant native to Europe…
Industrial microbiology continues to hold the promise of producing an increasingly large array of commercially important chemicals because an ever-wider number of useful microbes is being developed and successfully deployed at commercially viable scales. Today, many of these bio-based chemicals…
Harvest Power (Waltham, Mass.; www.harvestpower.com) recently began operation of the first commercial-scale, high-solids anaerobic digester in North America. The facility produces biogas from food waste and yard waste in Richmond, B.C., Canada. “The anaerobic digester employs essentially the same biology…
Short-chain hydrocarbons have been produced for the first time by microbial fermentation by a research team from the Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST; Daejeon, South Korea, www.kaist.ac.kr), led by…
Daiki Axis Co. (Matsuyama City, Japan; www.daiki-axis.com) has developed a new solid catalyst for biodiesel fuel production under the support of New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) under the authority of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry…
Last month, Carbo Ceramics Inc. (Houston; www.carboceramics.com) introduced KryptoSphere, an ultra-conductive, high-strength proppant technology designed to maximize and sustain hydrocarbon flow at high closure stresses for the life of the well. Developed in response to a request from a major…
Last month saw the start of a five-year joint research project to extract rubber from dandelion plants to make tires. In collaboration with Continental AG (Hannover, Germany; www.continental-tires.com), the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME; Aachen, Germany;…