In The News
A hybrid acid catalyst makes levulinate from cellulose
Ken-ichi Tominaga and colleagues at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; Tsukuba, Japan; www.aist.go.jp) have developed a hybrid catalyst system that can be used to convert cellulose into levulinic acid. The catalyst consists of two types…
Quantum clusters serve as ultra-sensitive detectors
Detection of extremely small quantities of dangerous or hazardous substances is important in many areas, including national security, safety of public utilities and radiation prevention. Several analytical methods have been developed using structural, functional and electronic properties of nanomaterials. In…
Toyo awarded PE-plant contract in Egypt
Toyo Engineering Corp. (Toyo; Chiba, Japan; www.toyo-eng.co.jp) has been jointly awarded with ENPPI, an engineering company under the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum, a contract to build a 400,000 ton/yr polyethylene (PE) plant as part of Ethydco's petrochemical complex to be…
A method to produce an iron-titanium alloy for H2-storage
A new and inexpensive way to produce TiFe — an alloy with potential as a material for reversibly storing hydrogen — has been developed by the research groups of professors Zenji Horita and Etsuo Akiba at Kyushu University (Fukuoka, Japan;…
A new way to desalt water without using RO or distillation
Capacitive desalination, in which salt ions are electrically removed from saltwater, has been researched for decades as a potentially cheaper alternative to energy-intensive reverse osmosis (RO) and distillation, but so far its application has been limited to waters with very…
MOFs that reversibly capture CO2
An Australian team has developed a structure made of a metal organic framework (MOF) that captures and then releases CO2 using natural sunlight. The team includes researchers from: CSIRO Division of Materials Science and Engineering, (Clayton South, Victoria; www.csiro.au) the…
April Chementator Briefs
Biosteel The worlds first artificial-silk fiber that is entirely made of recombinant spider-silk proteins has been produced by AMSilk GmbH (Planegg/Martinsreid, Germany; www.amsilk.com), a spin-off company of the Technical University of Munich. The fibers tensile strength is comparable to…
Production facility for stabilized sodium slated for startup
A new plant for manufacturing sodium silicide (Na4Si4;diagram), a non-flammable, air-stable powder that reacts with water to generate pure hydrogen, is under development near Niagara Falls, N.Y. by SiGNa Chemistry Inc. (New York; signachem.com). Scheduled for startup in the third…
Sinopec Sichuan Vinylon Works and Davy announce the acceptance of a methanol plant in China
China Petrochemical International Ltd. (Sinopec International), Sinopec Sichuan Vinylon Works (SVW) and Davy Process Technology (Davy; London, England; www.davyprotech.com), a wholly owned Johnson Matthey subsidiary, are pleased to announce the acceptance of a 771,000 metric ton (m.t.) per year methanol…
ThyssenKrupp to build complete cement plant in Indonesia
ThyssenKrupp Polysius has won a contract from PT Holcim Indonesia Tbk., Jakarta, to build a second cement plant near the town of Tuban on the northern coast of the island of Java. The contract is worth around $250 million and…