A patented moisture-control technology (MCT) developed by CSIRO Plant Industry (edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-534), with cooperation from Stellar Films Group (both Melbourne, Australia; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-535), has shown it can maintain field freshness of selected fruit and vegetables during extended periods of storage and shipping.…
The conventional way to dye textiles is by the so-called dip process, whereby cloth is first immersed into a vat of the dying medium, then removed and dried. The dye is then thermally fixed to the textile by heating to…
Toshishige M. Suzuki and his colleagues at the Tohoku Center of National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST; Sendai, Japan; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-538) has developed a new analytical test strip that can quickly detect parts-per-billion (ppb) concentrations of heavy metal…
Simulations of chemical processes that involve many reactants with continually changing compositions can be set up and run in minutes, rather than the previously required hours, with a newly commercialized software package, Reaction Engineering Lab, says developer Comsol (Stockholm, Sweden,…
The presence of arsenic minerals, such as enargite and tennantite, in some copper-bearing ore bodies, can be a problem for those wishing to recover the copper. When delivering copper concentrates to smelters in Australia, for example, miners are subjected to…
Solvay (Brussels, Belgium; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5827-536) is planning to build a new plant for producing epichlorohydrin at its Tavaux, France, site. When the facility starts up in the first half of 2007, it will produce 10,000 m.t./yr of epichlorohydrin using Solvay’s Epicerol…
LG Chem, Ltd. (Seoul, South Korea; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5826-545) has developed a direct oxidation process for making terephthalaldehyde (TPAL; terephthalic aldehyde), a key intermediate for dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, specialty polymers, and other fine chemicals. Because the conversion requires only one reaction step and…
Last month, Agilent Technologies, Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/5826-546) launched the 1200 Series liquid chromatography (LC) system, replacing its predecessor, the 1100 Series LC. With more than 60 instrument modules available, the 1200 Series can be configured for all major…
Large tracts of land that have been used for military training, especially in the U.S., are contaminated with RDX— a widely used explosive that is both toxic and carcinogenic. Although bacteria have been isolated that can biodegrade the RDX, the…
A gas-liquid nozzle that reduces the size of the gas bubbles blown into a liquid — thus increasing the rate at which the gas is absorbed into the liquid — has been developed by a research team led by Jie…