Chementator
Membrane bioreactor technology improves treatment of high-organic-content water
A next-generation, carbon-enhanced membrane-bioreactor (MBR) system improves treatment of industrial wastewater with high organic content and containing compounds that resist microbial breakdown. The system allows economic reuse of wastewater or discharge to meet stringent environmental standards. The new MBR, dubbed…
A new production route to high-purity magnetite
Last month, Pittsburgh Iron Oxides, LLC (Pirox; New Brighton, Pa.; www.piroxllc.com) was granted U.S. patent No. 7,744,848 for its process of producing high-purity magnetite (Fe3O4). The company produces synthetic magnetite, tradenamed SuperMagnetite, which has greater than 99% purity and exhibits…
Size reduction of cementitious material
Flyanic LLC (Newark, N.J.; www.flyanic.com) has developed an industrial-scale and economical process for grinding cement, flyash and other cementitious materials to a median particle size of 1 micron, making them suitable for use in concrete and mortar. For example, flyash…
Super emulsion slashes biodiesel production costs by 25%
The research group of Kazuo Tajima at Kanagawa University (Yokohama, Japan; apchem2.kanagawa-u.ac.jp) have developed a new emulsification process that enables biodiesel fuels (BDFs) to be used without any purification process, thereby reducing production costs by one fourth. Tajima estimates that…
Nanopores improving sterile filtration
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials (IWM; Halle, Germany; www.fraunhofer.de) have developed ceramic membranes with uniform pore structure and tight pore-size distribution, which makes them more stable and delivers considerably higher flowrates than existing ceramic membranes, which…
This rheometer performs multipass measurements
Strata Technology Ltd. (Sunbury-on-Thames, U.K.; www.stratatec.co.uk) has commercialized the Cambridge Multipass Rheometer (MPR), which was developed by professor Malcolm Mackley at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Cambridge University (www.ceb.cam.ac.uk) for advanced studies of the rheological properties of melts,…
Control mercury emissions from coal-fired plants without treating the fluegas
ADA-ES, Inc. (Littleton, Colo.; www.adaes.com) and Arch Coal, Inc. (St. Louis, Mo.), the U.S.’s second-largest coal producer, have signed an exclusive development and licensing agreement for an ADA-ES process that reduces mercury emissions from coal-fired plants by pretreating the coal.…
August chementator briefs
Graphene Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI; Troy, N.Y.; www.rpi.edu) have developed an inexpensive way to produce large quantities of graphene. Using acid treatment and ultrasound, the method is a step toward mass production of the atom-thick, honeycomb-shaped nanomaterial,…
Lignite drying-and-refining system formally dedicated
Last month, Great River Energy (Maple Grove, Minn.; www.greatriverenergy.com) dedicated its patented DryFining coal enhancement system at its power-generating plant, Coal Creek Station, N.D. The system, developed by Great River Energy, uses waste heat to reduce the moisture level of…
July Chementator Briefs
Torrefaction of biomass Last month, the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands (ECN; Petten; www.ecn.nl) and Vattenfall AB (Stockholm, Sweden; www.vattenfall.com) established a partnership to scale up ECNs BO2 technology — a process for upgrading biomass into a high-grade…