Capturing natural gas from petroleum drilling wells is economically challenging, but would have positive environmental impacts because it would eliminate the need for flaring and could allow the hydrocarbons to be converted into useful chemicals. Now, research led by chemists…
The extremely high material purity demanded for conventional lithium-ion battery manufacturing creates considerable costs for transporting and refining lithium and other raw materials. Through the development of a single-step electroplating process that uses lower-purity raw materials and a nanostructured-foam electrode…
In November 2023, Heirloom Carbon Technologies (Tracy, Calif.; www.heirloomcarbon.com) unveiled the United States’ first commercial direct air capture (DAC) facility, which can capture up to 1,000 ton/yr of CO2. The process first uses renewable energy to remove CO2 from limestone…
In November 2023, the first commercial test was initiated for a novel, fouling-immune membrane for brackish-water reverse osmosis (BWRO) applications through an early-access program. Membrane developer ZwitterCo (Woburn, Mass.; www.zwitterco.com) says its membrane is fouling-immune in cases where fouling of…
Metal components made with laser powder-bed fusion — an important additive manufacturing process — must be qualified for use in critical applications, but the qualification relies on expensive non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques. In-process monitoring offers a less expensive alternative, but…
Leather Tanning Trumpler GmbH & Co. KG (Worms, Germany; www.trumpler.com) and Archroma (Pratteln, Switzerland; www.archroma.com) have developed a new leather-production process that can be used to produce high-performance leather in a more eco-friendly and cost-efficient way. The new process, DyTan,…
In recent years, engineers at ETH Zurich have developed technology to produce liquid fuels from sunlight and air. At the heart of the production process is a solar reactor that is exposed to concentrated sunlight delivered by a parabolic mirror…
Substituting nitrogen atoms for aromatic carbon atoms at specific locations within the molecular skeleton of a possible therapeutic agent can have significant effects on molecular properties critical for biological activity, such as hydrogen bonding, polarity, metabolic stability, target specificity and…
A process to produce an alternative to palm oil for food applications, developed by scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore; www.ntu.edu.sg), will be scaled up for commercial production through a partnership with Eves Energy Pte. Ltd. (Singapore; www.eves-energy.com).…
Tailored separation systems address energy consumption and fouling while supporting sustainability Recently there has been a demand for separation technologies that are better suited to specific applications and a more sustainable world, so providers of filters and membranes have begun…