Advanced materials and sustainability efforts are driving the evolution of modern pigment and coloration technologies The complex chemistries that enable pigments to provide bright colors also open up much potential for advances in production and performance. Although pigments from nature…
Making more ARA Arcadia Biosciences Inc. (Davis, Calif.; www.arcadiabio.com) and Dupont Pioneer (Des Moines, Iowa; www.pioneer.com) recently completed field-trial validation for new safflower plants that produce high levels of arachidonic acid (ARA) oil, a high-value, specialty nutritional oil. The field…
Post-combustion carbon-capture processes that are based on adsorption of CO2 by amine compounds reduce the power output of coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants largely due to the energy required to regenerate the CO2 from the adsorbent material. In another approach,…
Colloidal glasses develop structural color through constructive interference. The color can be tuned by adjusting interparticle distance, making the colloidal glasses attractive for use as color pigments for use in coatings, displays, colorimetric sensors and optical barcodes. While colloidal crystals…
Plant Watch Unipetrol breaks ground on Czech Republic’s largest petrochemical project June 10, 2016 — Unipetrol a.s. (Prague, Czech Republic; www.unipetrol.cz) has officially broken ground for the construction of a new polyethylene unit, said to be the largest investment in…
Computational technology from Arzeda Corp. (Seattle, Wash.; www.arzeda.com) can streamline the development of novel enzymes, as well as improve existing enzymes, for industrial fermentation. The company’s proprietary computational platform, known as Archytas, uses advanced algorithms to design and screen a…
Last April, a demonstration plant started up for the production of hydrogen from aluminum-based composite waste. The startup marks the culmination of a project, supported by NEDO, in which Alhytec Inc. (Takaoa City, Japan; www.alhytec.co.jp) developed the process to separate…
Last month at the IFAT trade fair (May 30–June 3; Munich, Germany), Huber SE (Berching: www.huber.de) and Microdyn-Nadir GmbH (Wiesbaden, both Germany: www.microdyn-nadir.de) unveiled a rotating membrane bioreactor (MBR) that utilizes membrane laminate technology. “By combining our two technologies we…
By the end of this year, a demonstration plant will start up in the U.S. that uses an electrochemical process to recover phosphorus from wastewater, producing a fertilizer as struvite (NH4MgPO4·6H2O). Although the location and capacity of the plant has…
Nature-inspired surfaces are being developed that are not only highly repellent to water, but are even superomniphobic Although hydrophobic materials have been in use for many years, advances in nanotechnology are causing a revolution in the coatings and surface-treatment field.…