Li2CO3 from brine Purities of greater than 99.9% for battery-quality lithium carbonate have been achieved using a proprietary artificial-intelligence-powered crystallization technology developed by Standard Lithium Ltd. (Vancouver, B.C.; www.standardlithium.com). The total cation contaminant levels were reduced from nearly 2,500 parts…
Anellotech (Pearl River, N.Y.; www.anellotech.com) recently announced a successful laboratory demonstration of a process to convert mixed plastic waste into a host of useful starting materials for new plastics. The process (diagram), known as Plas-T-Cat, would take place in a…
An international team, led by Mahdokht Shaibani from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia; www.monash.edu), has developed an ultra-high capacity lithium-sulfur battery with better performance and lower environmental impact than current Li-ion batteries. The team includes people from Monash University, University of…
Everactive (Charlottesville, Va.; www.everactive.com) has just launched its Machine Health Monitor (MHM) product for batteryless vibration and temperature sensing of process machinery (photo). The MHM harvests waste energy from small temperature differentials (10°F or greater) and ambient light (100 lux…
An alternative method for processing mixed nickel-cobalt hydroxide precipitate to separate the nickel from cobalt and manganese has been proposed by a team from the Bandung Institute of Technology (Bandung, Indonesia; www.itb.ac.id), the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (Bandung) and the…
Researchers from Indonesia’s Bogor Agricultural University (Bogor, Indonesia; www.ipb.ac.id), the University of Bath (U.K.; www.bath.ac.uk), and the University of Johannesburg (Johannesburg, South Africa; www.uj.ac.za), led by Budi Riza Putra, have developed a low-cost, low-energy and low-maintenance, solar-powered desalination system that…
Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST; Daejeon; www.kaist.ac.kr) have developed a three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous nanostructured catalyst that is said to have a CO2-to-CO conversion rate up to 3.96 times higher than that of conventional…
A semiconducting material synthesized by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI; Troy, N.Y.; www.rpi.edu) could enable new ways of manipulating electronic materials remotely using light. The material, explains RPI professor of materials science and engineering Jian Shi, derives its unique…
A technology that removes oil from the surface of water without pumps or chemicals has been developed by German researchers at the Universities of Bonn (www.uni-bonn.de) and Aachen (www.uni-aachen.de) and textile-manufacturer Heimbach GmbH (Düren, Germany; www.heimbach.com). Textiles with special surface…
Developments in pressure relief technologies respond to chemical processors’ need for improved reliability and safety Pressure relief systems, whether rupture disks, pressure relief valves or other relief devices, are the last line of defense before a process enters a dangerous…