Coating technology that essentially eliminates carbon buildup on the interior of steam cracker tubes will be commercialized by Quantiam Technologies Inc. (Edmonton, Alta; www.quantiam.com). Commercial-scale tests in five ethylene crackers indicate that the coating can extend the time between furnace…
Last month at the National Ethanol Conference at Orlando, Fla., Novozymes’ A/S (Bagsvaerd, Denmark; www.novozymes.com) president and CEO, Steen Riisgaard, launched Cellic CTec2, a new enzyme product enabling the biofuel industry to produce cellulosic ethanol at a price below $2/gal…
A new Kraft pulp Weyerhaeuser Co. (Federal Way, Wash.; www.weyerhaeuser.com) says it has begun commercial production of a new grade of Kraft pulp for the cellulose derivatives market. Cellulose derivatives are used in various products, including lacquers, paints,…
A newly marketed portable reactor system for generating hydrogen is capable of generating 1,000 L of the gas in 20 min. The volume is sufficient to fill a 5-ft-dia. weather balloon, which is the first market targeted by the system’s…
Researchers from the Center for Membrane Technology, Beijing University of Technology (China; www.bjut.edu.cn) have developed a new spiral-wound membrane module for use in oxygen-enriched combustion. A pilot-scale system with five membrane modules has been built and tested in a 4-ton,…
Water reclamation Last month, a new water-reclamation process for the oil-and-gas industry was launched by HBC Systems, a newly created joint venture between Hydration Technology Innovations (HTI; Scottsdate, Ariz.; www.htiwater.com) and Bear Creek Services, LLC (Albany, Ore.; www.bearcreekservices.com). The…
A demonstration plant that will produce transportation fuels from cellulosic biomass will be built at Tesoro Corp.’s petroleum refinery in Kapolei, Hawaii, by Envergent Technologies (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.envergenttech.com), a joint venture of Honeywell’s UOP (Des Plaines; www.uop.com) and Ensyn…
What is said to be the first grassroots lignite-fueled power plant to use powdered activated carbon (PAC) for mercury capture has been started up near Franklin, Tex., by Luminant (Dallas, Tex.). In its initial operation the 800-MWe supercritical plant has…
This summer, Celitement GmbH (Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany; www.celitement.de) will begin construction on a pilot plant to produce a new cement known as Celitement. Located at the north campus of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; www.kit.edu), the facility will produce up…
A recently commercialized method for growing single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNs) in large quantities enables their use in a downstream process for depositing semiconducting inks onto flexible surfaces. Southwest NanoTechnologies Inc. (Norman, Okla.; www.swentnano.com) has developed a scalable technique (CoMoCAT process)…