CleanTech Biofuels, Inc. (St. Louis, Mo.; www.cleantechbiofuels.net), an early stage provider of cellulosic biomass feedstock derived from municipal solid waste (MSW) for energy and bio-based chemical production, announced an agreement with Fiberight LLC. (Catonsville, Md.; www. fiberight.com), to install its…
Professor Keiichi Tomishige and colleagues at Tohoku University (Sendai City, Japan; www.che.tohoku.ac.jp/~erec/) have developed a high-performance catalyst for synthesizing 1,3-propanediol (PDO) — a raw material for highly functional poly(trimethyleneteraphthalate) (PPT) fibers — from glycerin as starting material. The catalyst —…
Specialty chemicals group Lanxess AG (Leverkusen, Germany; www.lanxess.com) is expanding the capacity for its premium products in the Mesamoll range, amid growing demand for these phthalate-free plasticizers. A mid-single-digit amount in million euros is being invested in expanding production facilities…
Liquid copper is employed to gasify wastes in a process being developed by Ze-gen (Boston, Mass.; www.ze-gen.com) and will be tested in a small commercial plant in an industrial park in Attleboro, Mass. Scheduled for completion late next year, the…
KBR, Inc. (Houston; www.kbr.com) and SK Energy Co. (Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea; www.skenergy.com) have formed a new joint venture (JV), SK-KBR Technologies Pte. Ltd. Under the shareholders’ agreement, SK-KBR is granted exclusive world-wide rights to market and license SK Energy's petrochemical…
Last month, RWE Power (Cologne, Germany; www.rwe.com) and Linde-KCA-Dresden GmbH (www.linde-kca.com), a subsidiary of The Linde Group (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com), signed a framework agreement on the use of RWE’s WTA technology — a German acronym for fluidized-bed (FB) drying with internal…
Fluor Corporation (Irving, Tex.; www.fluor.com) was awarded a contract by Minera Lumina Copper Chile S.A. (Santiago) deliver engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for the company's new Caserones copper mine project in central Chile. Minera Lumina Copper Chile is…
A novel catalyst designed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov) and the University of California at Berkeley (www.berkeley.edu) has shown the ability to catalyze the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and…
BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) today (July 1, 2010) announced the merger of its Swiss group companies BASF Orgamol Pharma Solutions SA, Evionnaz, and BASF Fine Chemicals Switzerland SA, Evionnaz, to a single organization. The company arising from the merger…
New technology for fabricating nanoscale polymer threads boosts yields and improves control compared to conventional methods for producing nanoscale fibers by using a technique analogous to that for making cotton candy. The technology, known as rotary jet spinning (RJS), was…