Chementator
This new membrane bioreactor cuts energy costs and boosts throughput
GE Power & Water (Trevose, Penn.; ge.com) has introduced an improved membrane bioreactor (mbr) technology whose productivity is said to be 15% higher than that of its predecessor for wastewater treatment plants. The new system, called LEAPmbr, was derived from…
Practice Green Chemical Engineering
Almost by definition, chemical engineering is a “green” discipline today, as it so often involves efforts to optimize chemical processes in order to reduce the amount of energy and raw materials that are used and the amount of waste that…
A step forward for an energy-saving desalination process
An alternative desalination process that reduces energy consumption by over 50% compared to best available technology (BAT) has been successfully piloted by the Industry Sector of Siemens AG (Munich, Germany; www.siemens.com), in collaboration with Singapores national water agency, PUB, and…
Green honors
In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.; www.epa.gov) announced the winners of the 2011 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. Winners of the Challenge, which promotes R&D of less hazardous alternatives to existing technologies that reduce or eliminate…
Commercial launch of a new asymmetric hydrogenation catalyst
The Fine Chemicals Div. of Takasago International Corp. (Takasago; Tokyo, Japan; www.takasago.com) has commercialized a new, highly efficient asymmetric hydrogenation catalyst for producing chiral alcohols — key chemicals for the production of pharmaceuticals, fragrances and agrochemicals. The ruthenium-complex catalyst is…
Silicon passes a test in water-splitting
The use of solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen is an appealing idea, given that sunlight is abundant in many parts of the world, but one of the challenges to its development is to find a suitable…
A new HPCA monomer
Last month, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) launched a new crosslinking acrylate monomer, hydroxpropl carbamate acrylate (HPCA), which is said to shorten the processing time for the manufacture of carbamate-based polymers. HPCA enables crosslinkable carbamate units to be incorporated into…
A promising new forward-osmosis membrane
Forward osmosis (FO) has been recognized as a valuable technology for many applications including wastewater reclamation, seawater desalination, and energy production, due to the low energy input required. The osmotic pressure gradient across a semipermeable FO membrane causes water to…
U.S. power plant goes dry for handling bottom ash
Practically all of the coal-fired power plants in the U.S. collect ash from the bottoms of their boilers using a wet system — the ash falls into hoppers that are partially filled with water, and once or twice per shift…
Fuel-cell anode
A new anode material with nanostructured interfaces between barium oxide and nickel prevents deactivation by coking in solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) using carbon-containing fuels. The material offers a path to low-cost, low-emission SOFCs that can convert gasified carbon fuels to…