Biomass to sugar Plans are underway to build a commercial-scale sugar-production facility that uses a novel process for converting corn stover into high-purity glucose. The 95%-pure glucose syrup produced there will be used as a raw material in the production…
Shell Thiogro (www.shell.com/sulphur/thiogro) and Uhde Fertilizer Technologies (UFT; www. uhde-fertilizer-technology.com), part of thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions AG (Essen, Germany), have established a partnership to integrate UFT’s fluidized-bed (FB) granulation technology with Shell’s Urea-ES (enhanced sulfur) technology, which was introduced in May…
A design-of-experiments (DoE) approach has resulted in better-performing fluids for metal grinding, cutting and machining applications. These fluids serve to lubricate cutting surfaces, remove heat, prevent corrosion and carry away fine particulates that can distort machined surfaces. In recent years,…
The Clark-Reliance Corp. (Strongsville, Ohio; www.clark-reliance.com) has been awarded a U.S. Patent for its Eye-Hye SmartLevel system for remote indication of water level for industrial boilers. The patent recognizes the uniqueness of the system’s self-diagnostic technology, which intelligently monitors the…
Process safety strategies, water use and alkylation technology were among the topics figuring prominently at the 2016 AFPM annual meeting An evolving set of issues facing petroleum refiners in the U.S. figured prominently at the annual meeting of the American…
A novel food-packaging material that is free from chemical additives and that can slow down fungal growth — doubling the shelf-life of perishable foods — has been developed by researchers from the National University of Singapore (www.nus.edu.sg). The researchers used…
A holistic and proactive approach to cybersecurity can help protect your industrial control system from hackers In December 2015, 80,000 homes in the Ukraine were left without power when a cyber attack took down the electrical infrastructure. Investigations suggest that…
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge, Mass.; www.mit.edu) have demonstrated a two-stage process to convert synthesis gas (syngas) into lipids that can be used in biodiesel production. Eventually, such a process could be used to convert waste…
A Korean team, headed by professor Sang Yup Lee of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Daejeon, South Korea; www.kaist.ac.kr), has obtained various forms of PLGA [poly(lactate-co-glycolate)] from natural sources, allowing plastics to be made in an environmentally…
The field of additive manufacturing (AM) — often referred to as 3-D printing — has seen explosive growth in recent years (Chem. Eng., February 2015, pp. 20–23; www.chemengonline.com/3-d-printing-accelerates-creating-cpi-opportunities). In AM, no tools or molds are required to shape the desired…