Chementator
Rechargeable MnO2-Zn batteries with a higher voltage
Researchers at the City University of New York Energy Institute (ccny.cuny.edu) have developed a low-cost battery based on manganese dioxide and zinc that reaches voltages of greater than 2 V, a first-time achievement that could allow batteries with these low-cost…
A control valve with built-in flowmeter
On September 19, Focus-On (Dordrecht, the Netherlands; www.focus-on-process.com) — a new, 50:50 joint-venture (JV) of Samson AG (Frankfurt am Main; www.samson.de) and Krohne GmbH & Co. KG (Duisburg, both Germany; www.krohne.com) — introduced its new “intelligent process node,” a device…
Incorporating nanoparticles into polymer melts
Because of their large surface area per unit mass, nanoparticles of additives can have a big impact on the properties of plastics, such as changing the crystallization temperature, and improving heat transfer, electrical properties (conductivity) and mechanical properties, as well…
Products from natural gas
Linde Engineering (Pullach, Germany; www.linde-engineering.com) has developed a process to recover helium, hydrocarbons and purified carbon dioxide from natural gas, while conditioning the natural gas for pipeline transport by adjusting the water and heavy-hydrocarbon dew point and the CO2 concentration.…
Making solar steam and salts from brine
A low-cost “green” technology for water desalination and zero liquid discharge of industrial wastewater that has been drawing increasing attention is solar steam generation using nanostructured photothermal materials. However, the crystallization of salts on the surface of photothermal materials during…
Chementator Briefs
Carbyne transfer Marcos G. Suero and his research group at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ; Tarragona, Spain; www.iciq.es) have reported a new reaction that inserts a monovalent carbon unit between both sp2-hybridized carbons of alkenes. For the…
Underground oxidation of hydrocarbons and gas separation yields hydrogen
A process for in-situ oxidation of hydrocarbons in low-quality oilfields, and subsequent gas separation, offers a path to generating hydrogen for fuel and chemicals that avoids any greenhouse gas emissions. Known as Hygienic Earth Energy (HEE), the process has been…
Reduction of carbon dioxide to methane
Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to hydrocarbons and oxygenates on copper involves reduction to a carbon monoxide adsorbate followed by transformation to hydrocarbons and oxygenates. To ensure the sustainability of the process, the electrochemical CO2 reduction is typically conducted in…
Multi-state switchable stationary phase for chiral separation
High-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) using a chiral stationary phase (CSP) is the most effective method for separating enantiomers of chiral molecules. However, the limited number of CSPs available puts a constraint on applying this technology universally. Now, researchers from the…
Ionic liquids enable lower-cost desalination with forward osmosis
Membrane-based forward osmosis (FO) desalination could be a lower-cost alternative to conventional reverse osmosis (RO) technology, which can desalinate ocean water effectively, but requires electricity to drive the separation, and so remains expensive. Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL;…