In The News
Carbon storage and electricity generation project gets DOE funding
A project aimed at using geothermal heat to power an electricity-producing turbine with supercritical carbon dioxide has received a $5 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE; Washington, D.C.; www.energy.gov). The project also incorporates an element of CO2…
September Chementator Briefs
Phosgenation scaleup At the end of July, Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS; Leverkusen, Germany; www.bayerbms.com) successfully tested its new gas-phase phosgenation technology at a new plant being commissioned for making toluene diisocyanate (TDI) — a raw material for making polyurethane —…
Boost heavy metal recovery from wastewater with graphite-oxide coated sand
A process to greatly enhance the ability of sand to filter heavy metals from water has been developed by researchers from Monash University, of Melbourne, Australia (www.monash.edu.au), Rice University (Houston; www.rice.edu) and Nanoholdings LLC (Marietta, Ga.; www.nanoholdings.com). Historically, the researchers…
Microbe-based process for GBL nears commercialization
Metabolix Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.; www.metabolix.com) has successfully demonstrated and completed research and development for scaleup on a fermentation process that produces gamma -butyrolactone (GBL) from genetically engineered bacteria. The process is built upon the company’s technology for engineering metabolic pathways…
A promising method for producing conductive graphene sheets
Since the isolation of graphene by the “Scotch tape” method, many researchers have tried to synthesize solution-dispersible graphene. The challenge has been to develop a high-yield method that can exfoliate graphite efficiently into solution-dispersible graphene sheets without collateral damage to…
Solvent extraction method shows promise for recovering bitumen from tar sands
Today only a few percent of Canada’s oil sands resource is accessible by traditional surface mining, so the rest has to be recovered in situ, mostly by steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). In this process, steam is injected into a horizontal…
‘Green’ surfactants from yeast
A new yeast strain that could one day substitute for petroleum as a source of surfactants for detergents, soaps and cosmetics has been identified by researchers at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (Peoria, Ill.;…
Monomers from glucose
Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. (MCC; Tokyo, www.m-kagaku.co.jp, MCC) is developing bio-based technology for producing propylene, butadiene, 1,4-butanediol (BDO), terephthalic acid and succinic acid from glucose. In collaboration with North American partners, MCC plans to start production of succinic acid and 1,4…
Tires, old and new
Mobility as a “megatrend” has recently become the latest buzz-word, and synthetic rubber producers are boosting production capacities to meet the anticipated demand for more tires. At the same time, high fuel prices and increasing concern for the environment are…
Plastics-to-oil JV plans full-scale facility
A joint venture (JV) between Vadxx Energy LLC (Akron, Ohio; www.vadxx.com) and Greenstar Recycling (Houston; www.greenstarrecycling.com) plans to start up a facility in mid-2012 to convert recovered plastics to synthetic crude oil. When complete, the facility will produce 80,000 bbl/yr…