Launched this month at drinktec (Trade Fair for the Beverage and Liquid Food Industry; September 16–20; Munich, Germany), Eco-IcePush is a new technology for recovering products during equipment purging, and is being offered by GEA Process Engineering A/S (Søborg, Denmark),…
Many investigations are ongoing to achieve ammonia synthesis at energy-saving mild conditions instead of the high temperatures and pressures (500°C, 300 atm) required by the commonly used Haber-Bosch process, which consumes more than 1% of the world’s power production. Now,…
High fluxes and micro-contaminant reduction have been achieved in a 2.5-m3/h pilot plant to test the performance of ceramic membranes and ozonation in treating wastewater at Melbourne Water’s (www.melbournewater.com.au) Eastern Treatment Plant. The project, to be completed in a few…
Researchers from EMPA, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (St. Gallen, Switzerland; www.empa.ch) have developed organic phosphorous-containing compounds, called phosphoramidates, that show promise as non-toxic alternatives to conventional halogenated flame retardants, such as tri(chloropropyl)phosphate (TCPP) or polybrominated…
The petroleum refining sector in India plays a vital role in the country’s industrial development and provides a major source to meet India’s energy requirements. Today, the refining sector satisfies about 30% of the total energy demand of India […
Researchers from the U.S. Dept. of Energys Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI; Emeryville, Calif.; www.jbei.org) have reported the first demonstration of a one-pot, wash-free process for the ionic-liquid pretreatment and saccharification of switchgrass — a leading potential biofuel feedstock. By combining…
Technology originally developed for harvesting oil from algae has now been applied to sanitize water and remove ammonia from commercial aquaculture ponds. Electro Water Separation (EWS) technology, developed by OriginOil Technologies (Los Angeles, Calif.; www.originoil.com), applies pulses of tuned electromagnetic…
Sapphire Energy, Inc. (San Diego, Calif.; www.sapphireenergy.com) and The Linde Group (Munich; www.linde.com) have signed an agreement, with a minimum span of five years, to commercialize Sapphire’s process for producing crude oil from algae. The agreement expands an existing partnership…
CSIRO Minerals Down Under Flagship (Perth, Western Australia; www.csiro.au/MDU) has developed a method that uses hydrotalcite formation to simultaneously remove contaminants from mining and industrial wastewaters in a single step. Current wastewater-treatment processes typically produce lime-based slurries, often with large…
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin (www.utexas.edu) and the University of Marburg (Germany; www.uni-marburg.de) are developing a process, called electrochemically mediated seawater desalination, that promises to be an inexpensive way to desalinate small volumes of water. The patent-pending…