In The News
An electrotrophic system that treats swine sewage in one step
Researchers from the Biological Systems Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST; Japan; www.oist.jp) have developed a bioelectrochemical system that uses bacterial communities to break down organic material from raw wastewater, and removes both nitrates…
Reducing the cost of redox flow batteries
Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are a promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries for storing large quantities of renewable energy (see Chem. Eng., September 2016, pp. 14–20), but they have always been too expensive for the mass market. Now, researchers at the…
Simultaneous desalination and decontamination of water
The purification of seawater and wastewater for agriculture and human consumption is becoming increasingly important in water-scarce regions. Along with the removal of salt, rendering ocean water and wastewater suitable for humans and plants also involves removal of elements that…
A new way to capture CO2 in cement
Technologies designed to capture and store CO2 emissions from industrial operations are rapidly gaining traction, but finding ways to economically utilize the captured CO2 has posed challenges. A team of engineers from the University of California Los Angeles’ (UCLA; www.ucla.edu)…
Demonstration for a new process to make isobutene
Last month, OMV AG (Vienna, Austria; www.omv.com) commissioned its ISO C4 demonstration isobutene plant at its Burghausen, Germany site. The plant is based on technology developed jointly by OMV and BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com), and has been producing high-purity…
Project aims to establish supply of REEs from waste streams
An effort is underway to establish an environmentally friendly supply of rare-earth elements (REEs) from waste streams in the U.S. The project, undertaken by American Resources Corp. (Fishers, Ind.; www.americanresourcescorp.com), is focused on re-positioning assets from the coal industry to…
New catalyst for oxidative dehydrogenation of propane to propylene
Conventional propane dehydrogenation (PDH) is an endothermic, equilibrium-limited reaction that requires high temperatures to achieve commercially viable per-pass yields of propylene. Oxidative propane dehydrogenation has the potential to form propylene at much lower temperatures and more selectively by controlling the…
Business News: May 2021
Plant Watch Chevron and Honeywell start up alkylation unit using new ionic-liquids technology April 13, 2021 — Chevron Corp. (San Ramon, Calif.; www.chevron.com) and Honeywell International, Inc. (Charlotte, N.C.; www.honeywell.com) announced the commissioning and startup of the world’s first commercial-scale…
AI-enabled design-and-test platform speeds bioproduct development
TeselaGen Biotechnology (San Francisco, Calif.; www.teselagen.com) has developed a platform technology that integrates software and services, while taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) by applying machine-learning algorithms to reduce the costs and time required for the development of biologically derived…
Recovering battery-grade graphite, without using HF
Typically, to achieve the high graphite purity levels demanded by lithium-ion battery (LIB) applications, processors depend on hydrofluoric acid to remove silica impurities. Now, a new graphite-purification technology that eliminates the use of highly corrosive and toxic HF is being…