A team of researchers from Novasep (Pompey, France; www.novasep.com) has discovered and characterized the explosive properties of the so-called Togni reagent II and intermediates at the Novasep Leverkusen site in Germany. Invented by professor Antonio Togni at the Laboratory of…
Last month, Krohne Messtechnik GmbH (Duisburg, Germany; www.krohne.com) launched SmartSens, the first family of two-wire, loop-powered analytical sensors with integrated transmitter technology. Prior to this, analytical sensors have required an external proprietary transmitter onsite to deliver the sensor signals to…
Naomi Shibasaki-Kitagawa at Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan; www.che.tohoku.ac.jp/~rpel/) has developed a continuous reactor for making biodiesel fuel from low-quality waste, such as cooking oil. Her production process uses an expanded-bed reactor packed with an anion-exchange resin that has both catalytic…
Two new coating products for sand proppants used in hydraulic fracturing operations in the oil and gas industry overcome the challenges of traditional phenolic coatings, which can leach environmentally hazardous chemicals. The coatings, developed by Preferred Sands LLC (Radnor, Pa.;…
Researchers from the group of Atsushi Fukuoka at the Catalysis Research Center of Hokkaido University (Sapporo; www.cat.hokudai.ac.jp), and Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; Tokyo, both Japan; www.sdk.co.jp) have developed a new catalyst that efficiently decomposes biomass into sugars. The activated-carbon-based catalyst…
The research groups of Keiichi Fujishige at Tohoku University (Sendai, www.che.tohoku.ac.jp/~erec) and Daicel Corp. (Osaka, both Japan; www.daicel.com) have developed a process for making 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PDO) from glycerin, a byproduct of biodiesel-fuel production. The researchers improved a catalyst developed by…
Heap-leaching for REs Studies conducted by Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (Sierra Blanca, Tex.; www.trer.com) indicate that heap leaching with 15% (~150 g/L) sulfuric acid has the potential to dissolve minerals containing rare-earth (RE) elements from host rock at…
A process developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (www.uta.edu) uses copper-based semiconductor nanoscale-rod arrays and solar radiation to carry out a photoelectroreduction of carbon dioxide to methanol. The process offers a pathway to utilize the greenhouse…
Following a positive feasibility study, American Vanadium Corp. (Vancouver, B.C.; www.americanvanadium.com) will construct the world’s first sulfuric acid heap-leach mining operation for vanadium at a specific geologic formation in central Nevada, known as Gibellini Hill. The project is currently in…
A newly launched gas chromatography (GC) device from Analytical Pixels Technology (APIX; Grenoble, France; www.apixtechnology.com), called GCAP, uses a nanoscale silicon-beam resonator to detect mass. A piezoelectric cross-beam initiates the vibration of the nanoscale silicon resonator, and the resonance frequency…