Scientists at the U.S. DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) have developed an electrochemical process that directly produces ethanol from CO2. The researchers used a catalyst consisting of copper nanoparticles embedded in carbon spikes, and applied voltage to…
Testing and characterization techniques are rising to meet the demands of increasingly complex materials and applications Ensuring the integrity of materials is essential in the chemical process industries (CPI) for the continued maintenance of long-lifetime process equipment like vessels and…
Connected enterprises and intelligent instrumentation promote predictive maintenance and improve reliability Process reliability is one of the most important factors in achieving a profit for producers in the chemical process industries (CPI). However, maintenance departments in these facilities deal with…
Plant Watch Covestro doubles polycarbonate resin production capacity in Shanghai October 12, 2016 — Covestro AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.covestro.com) is doubling production capacities for polycarbonate resin from 200,000 to 400,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) by inaugurating two new production…
A partnership between materials company NuMat Technologies (Skokie, Ill.; www.numat-tech.com) and The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.the-linde-group.com) is set to bring metal-organic-framework (MOF) materials into the mainstream industrial-gas sector. Touted for their extremely high surface area and adsorption capacity, MOFs…
A new technology that uses plasma to kill bacteria and simultaneously oxidize organic material in water systems offers a non-chemical alternative to water treatment in several industry sectors, such as food and beverage, power generation, oil and gas and others.…
Daylight-driven photocatalysts have attracted much attention in the context of “green” technology for reducing pollutants. Although a number of active materials have been reported and their applications are rapidly increasing, many are discovered after enormous experimental efforts. Now, Isao Tanaka…
Ammonia is a crucial chemical feedstock for fertilizer production, as well as a potential energy carrier. However, the current, century-old method of synthesizing ammonia, the Haber–Bosch process, consumes a great deal of energy, operating at high pressures (several hundred atmospheres)…
An adsorption desalination and cooling (ADC) plant has been implemented at Solar Village near the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, by King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (KACST; www.kacst.edu.sa). The project to build the plant resulted from a collaboration…
A new alkylation technology that uses ionic liquids as a catalyst has been licensed by Honeywell UOP (Des Plaines, Ill.; www.uop.com), and will be marketed under the tradename Isoalkyl. The technology — developed by Chevron U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of…