A closed-loop, long-duration energy-storage system (diagram) developed by Malta, Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.; www.maltainc.com) could provide a carbon-neutral path to industrial heating. “One of the exciting facets of this technology is that it generates a lot of discharge heat. When we…
Engineering design of a demonstration plant is underway for a process that pyrolyzes natural gas into hydrogen and solid carbon. The process was developed by C-Zero Inc. (Goleta, Calif.; www.czero.energy), a company set up in 2018 to develop and commercialize…
Last month, Amarillo Gold Corp. (Toronto, Canada; www.amarillogold.com) selected Metso Outotec’s (Helsinki, Finland; www.mogroup.com) modular FIT Station for its Posse Gold greenfield mining project in the state of Goiás in central Brazil. This will be the first commercial installation of…
L-Alanine DMC Biotechnologies, Inc. (DMC; Boulder, Colo.; www.dmcbio.com) has successfully demonstrated full commercial scale (85 m3) fermentation for its first product, the amino acid L-alanine. The scaleup results identically tracked the performance at bench and pilot scales, further validating the…
Atomic-layer deposition (ALD), a surface engineering technique that applies layers of coatings in a conformal way at single-atom thicknesses, is being investigated for its potential to improve the selectivity and durability of industrial catalysts under a U.S. Dept. of Energy…
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa; Dübendorf; www.empa.ch) and ETH Zurich (both Switzerland; www.ethz.ch) have made wood compressible and turned it into a piezoelectric generator. The research, reported last month in the journal Science…
Bühler AG (Uzwil, Switzerland; www.buhlergroup.com) is making a major step towards digitally connected rice mills of the future. The first rollout for integrated rice mills is entering the final stages, with the initial setup using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine…
Microplastic pollutants in wastewater are notoriously difficult to treat, and can stem from many common sources, ranging from personal-care products to textiles. A new treatment technology developed by a team of researchers from Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS;…
Last month, Lanxess AG (Cologne, Germany; www.lanxess.com) inaugurated a new plant in Lillo/Antwerp, Belgium to reduce the nitrous oxide emissions that are generated during the production of caprolactam. The €10-million investment breaks down approximately 500 metric tons (m.t.) of N2O…
Planned commercial-scale production of macrocyclic gamma-lactone molecules using an enzymatic process will supply the flavors and fragrances market with sustainable alternatives to existing processes based on synthesizing petroleum-derived molecules or isolating molecules from natural sources. The synthetic biology company Conagen…