Chementator
Chementator briefs for August
Bioplastics DSM Engineering Plastics (Sittard, Netherlands; www.dsm.com) has introduced EcoPaXX, a biobased, high-performance engineering plastic that is said to have a zero carbon footprint (100% carbon neutral from cradle to grave). Approximately 70% of EcoPaXX is made from building blocks…
A silver-based antimicrobial
Pure Bioscience (El Cajon, Calif.; www.purebio.com) has developed silver dihydrogen citrate (SDC), the first antimicrobial approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, D.C.) in 30 years, with applications in the pharmaceutical, personal care, household, food and textile markets.…
Scaleup for a downer FCC process
In October, Nippon Oil Corp. (Tokyo, Japan;www.eneos.co.jp) will start constructing a high-severity fluidized-catalytic cracking (HS-FCC) unit, the first in the world that can produce large amounts of propylene from heavy fuel oils. The unit, located at Mizushima Refinery (Kurashiki-City), will…
Diamond lubricant cuts friction and increases equipment life
The lifetime of steel bearings can be extended by up to eight times by a new synthetic diamond lubricant, according to its developer, NanoLube, Inc. (Lombard, Ill.; www.diamondlube.com). The lubricant consists of 0.1–4-nm diamond spheres that are dispersed in a…
Making fine particles of inhalable drugs
A team from the School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia; www.unsw.edu.au), has developed a process for the micronization of insulin called Arise (Atomized Rapid Injection for Solvent Extraction). According to BioParticle…
Cellulose-to-aromatics process simplifies BTX production
A single-step method to convert cellulosic biomass into aromatic compounds offers a simpler and more environmentally friendly route to the petrochemical feedstocks benzene, toluene and xylenes (BTX), according to a Massachusetts bioenergy startup company seeking to scale up the technique.…
Direct conversion of cellulose to HMF demonstrated
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL; Richland, Wash.; www.pln.gov) have published the first direct route for converting plant cellulose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a valuable platform chemical for the production of both plastics and biofuels. Appearing in the June issue…
A new support for biofilters
Researchers from the Environmental Biotechnology Cooperative Research Center (Sydney and Perth, Australia; www.ebcrc.com.au) have developed a new way to harness bacteria to biodegrade odor-causing substances. Traditional biofilters typically employ compost supported on wood chips to trap the odor-producing substances, and…
Using gold to catalyze oxidation reactions
Polymer-supported nanoclusters of gold have recently been shown to catalyze the oxidation of alcohols to ketones at room temperature in air by the research group of chemistry professor Shu Kobayashi, University of Tokyo (www.chem.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp), in a project supported by Japan…
Scaleup is set for an air-separation membrane
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI, Palo Alto, Calif.; www.epri.com) has signed an agreement with Air Products (Allentown, Penn.; www.airproducts.com) to support the company’s development of a ceramic ion transport membrane (ITM) for air separation. The membrane is being tested…