Large supermarkets routinely waste 500 lb of food daily from past-due produce, deli and meat scraps and other sources. A new process developed by California Safe Soil (CSS; McClellan, Calif.; www.calsafesoil.com) converts the nutrient-rich waste food into a liquid fertilizer…
For a long time, it has been believed that the crystallization of zeolites is, by nature, a very slow process. The hydrothermal synthesis of zeolites is normally performed batchwise, requiring crystallization times on the order of days. Now, Toru Wakihara…
Two Australian companies — Australian Vanadium Ltd. (AVL; www.australianvanadium.com.au) and TNG Ltd. (both Perth; www.tngltd.com.au) — are now able to produce commercial-grade vanadium electrolyte for use in vanadium redox-flow batteries (VRFBs). Those batteries are increasingly gaining favor, primarily for grid-scale…
Researchers from the group of professor Ikuya Yamada at Osaka Prefecture University (Osaka, Japan; www.osakafu-u.ac.jp), in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (Hyogo; www.spring8.or.jp) and Fuji Die Co. (Tokyo; www.fujidie.co.jp), have synthesized for the first…
The release of silver from industrial wastewater has caused serious environmental problems. Many methods have been developed to remove silver ions from industrial wastewater, including chemical precipitation, ion exchange, electrolysis, replacement, membrane and reverse osmosis. Several adsorbents have been used…
A new commercial manufacturing process for carbon nanotubes (CNTs) produces tubes in the range of 1–10 mm in length (5–12-nm dia.), two orders of magnitude longer than currently available CNTs, which typically have lengths from 5–20µm. “Despite attractive mechanical and…
Gas Innovations (La Porte, Tex.; www.gasinnovations.com) has signed a 15-year, pay-per-use agreement with Haldor Topsøe A/S (Topsøe; Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) for a second on-site carbon-monoxide production unit, using Topsøe’s electrolytic Carbon Monoxide solution (eCOs) technology. The first eCOs unit in…
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; Germany; www.kit.edu) is cooperating with research institutions and industry partners to develop a novel process chain for the synthesis of methanol, either without the use of fossil resources or by reusing CO2 from undesired…
A group of organizations, lead by the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI; San Antonio, Tex.; www.swri.org) has begun a project to design a power-generation pilot plant featuring a flameless, pressurized oxyfuel combustion technology that allows the capture of 100% of the…
Starch is essential for imparting strength to corrugated cardboard boxes, but millions of tons of starch are lost in cardboard recycling processes annually because conditions are ripe for bacteria to thrive, and the microorganisms degrade starch by converting it to…