Two new proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) electrolysis systems have debuted, targeting applications that require large volumes of hydrogen. Prior to the launch of Proton OnSite’s (Wallingford, Conn.; www. protononsite.com) M1 and M2 modular H2-generation systems, the largest capacity commercially available from PEM…
A new type of CO2-capture media based on permeable polymer microcapsules has been developed by teams of scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, Calif.; www.llnl.gov), Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.; www.harvard.edu) and the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (www.illinois.edu). The materials have…
Plant Watch Prayon to build food-grade sodium hexametaphosphate plant in Georgia February 11, 2015 — Prayon S.A. (Engis, Belgium; www.prayon.com) plans to build a manufacturing plant for food-grade sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) in Augusta, Ga. Projected capacity of the new SHMP…
The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO, Kawasaki; www.nedo.go.jp) and partners IHI Corp. (Tokyo; www.ihi.co.jp), Kobe University (www.kobe-u.ac.jp) and Neo-Morgan Laboratory Inc. (NML; Kawasaki, all Japan; www.neo-morgan.com) have completed construction on an outdoor test site with 1,500-m2 of…
Chemists from Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu) are developing an asphalt-based powder that holds 114% of its weight in CO2. The porous material, known as asphalt-porous carbon (A-PC) captures CO2 as it leaves a natural-gas wellhead at room temperature and at…
Praxair Surface Technologies, a division of Praxair, Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com), has recently introduced a new line of ceramic aluminum coatings that are said to have the same performance as legacy chromium (VI)-containing coatings. The company’s SermeTel CF and SermaLoy…
Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) is a relatively new process to form carbon-carbon bonds of well-defined polymers. Since its discovery in 1995, ATRP has been performed using transition-metal complexes, such as those of copper. This feature has limited the application…
Construction has been completed on a trailer-mounted pilot plant that will produce substitute natural gas (SNG) from the products of biomass gasification (H2, CO2 and CO). Built by researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; www.kit.edu) as part of…
Activity in standards development, industry initiatives and R&D are fueling the growth of additive manufacturing (3-D printing) technology in industry The field of additive manufacturing (AM) — often referred to as three-dimensional (3-D) printing — has seen explosive growth in…
The Catalyst Div. of BASF (Iselin, N.J.; www.basf.com) has launched PremAir NXT, a next-generation direct ozone reduction (DOR) catalytic coating technology that can help automakers meet new U.S. Tier 3 and California LEV III emissions reduction requirements. When applied to…