Technology originally developed for harvesting oil from algae has now been applied to sanitize water and remove ammonia from commercial aquaculture ponds. Electro Water Separation (EWS) technology, developed by OriginOil Technologies (Los Angeles, Calif.; www.originoil.com), applies pulses of tuned electromagnetic…
Sapphire Energy, Inc. (San Diego, Calif.; www.sapphireenergy.com) and The Linde Group (Munich; www.linde.com) have signed an agreement, with a minimum span of five years, to commercialize Sapphire’s process for producing crude oil from algae. The agreement expands an existing partnership…
CSIRO Minerals Down Under Flagship (Perth, Western Australia; www.csiro.au/MDU) has developed a method that uses hydrotalcite formation to simultaneously remove contaminants from mining and industrial wastewaters in a single step. Current wastewater-treatment processes typically produce lime-based slurries, often with large…
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin (www.utexas.edu) and the University of Marburg (Germany; www.uni-marburg.de) are developing a process, called electrochemically mediated seawater desalination, that promises to be an inexpensive way to desalinate small volumes of water. The patent-pending…
A process that is expected to produce high-octane gasoline from non-food biomass for an average cost of $1.50/gal, depending on feed costs, will be commercialized by Cool Planet Energy Systems (Denver, Colo.; www.coolplanet.com). The company has tested the process in…
Last month, Southwest Research Institute (SWRI; San Antonio, Tex.; www.swri.org) was awarded $1.5 million by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA; Arlington, Va.; www.darpa.mil) for a three-year project to develop alternative technologies for depositing thin films. The project is…
A typical fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCC) generates about 200 tons/d of dry gas — a mixture of off-gases that is burned as refinery fuel. However, about 40 tons of that gas is ethylene, which would have much greater value…
Anti-hydrolysis agent Teijin Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; www.teijin.co.jp) has developed a new carbodiimide anti-hydrolysis agent that is said to exhibit “superior” anti-hydrolysis properties to improve the durability of plastics. The agent has the additional advantage of not emitting isocyanate gas,…
Nikkiso Co. (Tokyo, Japan) the manufacturer of fluid control technologies, has acquired Geveke B.V. (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), a sales company and system integrator of industrial pumps and compressors, as a strategic investment at this end of July 2013. Nikkiso is…
The U.S. Energy Department (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov) today recognized the nation’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol production at Ineos Bio’s Indian River BioEnergy Center in Vero Beach, Florida. Developed through a joint venture between Ineos Bio and New Planet Energy,…