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)…
Professor Shigeru Yamago and colleagues at the Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University (Japan; www.scl.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~yasuyuki/) have synthesized [8]cycloparaphenylene for the first time. The 11-nm-dia. molecule consists of eight benzene molecules linked together in a closed chain. The compound has a…
A patented (WO 2008/053174), fluidic-oscillator-driven device that generates microbubbles has been shown by researchers from the University of Sheffield (U.K.; www.shef.ac.uk/cpe), in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Prague; www.cas.cz/en), to improve the performance of air-lift…
In Malaysia, about 2-million metric tons (m.t.) of rice husk are produced each year, and the rice husk is either burned or disposed of as waste. Now this waste may find application as a non-leachable building material thanks to a…
Results of 12-mo immersion tests in biodiesel and bioethanol of a range of elastomer polymers typically used in fuel-handling equipment show that the seals are prone to significant swelling, which leads to failure in valves and other equipment, according to…
A new process for producing the oxidizing agent potassium ferrate (VI) (K2FeO4) can routinely generate multi-kilogram quantities per day, say scientists. Ferratec (St. Louis, Mo.; www.theincubationfactory.com) and partner Electrosynthesis (Lancaster, N.Y.; www.electrosynthesis.com) have licensed the process technology from Battelle (Columbus,…
A two-year collaboration between Ashland Hercules Water Technologies (AHWT; Wilmington, Del.), a commercial unit of Ashland Inc. (Covington, Ky.; www.ashland.com), and BASF Nederland B.V. (Nijehaske, the Netherlands) has demonstrated that a combination of ultrasonic microbial control and corrosion inhibitors not…
A new distillation device developed by UOP LLC (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com) will make its commercial debut in an ethylene separation column at LG Chem, Ltd.’s petrochemical plant in Yeosu, South Korea. Scheduled for startup in the near future, the…
Carbon nanotube membranes are being developed for water desalination and carbon dioxide sequestration by Porifera Inc. (Hayward, Calif.; www.poriferanano.com) under an exclusive license from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, Livermore, Calif.). Porifera, a new company, expects to commercialize desalination membranes…