Reverse-osmosis (RO) desalination membranes use a polyamide selective layer formed on a microporous support to separate water molecules from salts. Past efforts to characterize the polyamide membrane structure have been limited by the internal variability of the selective layer. Now,…
Today, synthetic routes to about 10% of the top 50 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) include one or more Grignard reactions, which are used to form C–C bonds. Normally, the reaction is performed batch-wise in continuous stirred-tank reactors (CSTRs), with Grignard…
A consortium, led by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO; The Hague; www.tno.nl), has received an exceptional grant of €21 million from the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program to investigate and develop the potential of…
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (www.nus.edu.sg), led by associate professor He Jianzhong, have found a new strain of bacterium called Thauera sp. strain SND5, which is capable of simultaneous nitrification and denitrification and phosphate removal from wastewater. The…
Conventional adhesives, such as epoxy, are designed to cure using moisture, heat and light. Curing is necessary to cross-link and bond the glue with the two secured surfaces as the glue crystallizes and hardens. Now, scientists from Nanyang Technological University…
A new membrane technology for separating carbon dioxide from exhaust gas will be scaled up for real-world testing under a project to evaluate low-cost CO2 capture at a coal-fired power plant. Design and testing of an engineering-scale CO2-capture system will…
Late last November, the energy-transition start-up company Lumenion GmbH (Berlin, Germany; www.lumenion.com) received the 2020 Berlin Brandenburg Innovation Prize for its high-temperature, steel-based energy-storage technology. The system stores peaks of wind and solar energy by heating a steel core to…
A groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, dubbed CAMEO (Closed-Loop Autonomous System for Materials Exploration), rapidly identified a potentially useful new material — a germanium-antimony-tellurium alloy (Ge4Sb6Te7) that is optimized for phase-change applications in data storage and photonic-switching devices. Tasked with…
Typically, the production of fuel-grade chemicals, such as butanol, from biomass fermentation processes involves low-yield batch processes and high energy costs. Now, researchers from Imperial College London (ICL; www.imperial.ac.uk), in partnership with bp plc (London; www.bp.com), have demonstrated a new…
MDI Production Late last year, Covestro AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.covestro.com) started up a pilot plant for the production of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) based on the innovative AdiP (adiabatic-isothermal phosgenation) technology at its Brunsbüttel site. The new technology promises to…