Microplastics — a subgroup of plastics with an effective diameter less than 5 mm — are ubiquitous pollutants. They adsorb organic and metal pollutants that are ingested by aquatic organisms, and accumulated all the way up the food chain. Using…
The water-gas shift reaction (WGS; in which water vapor is reacted with carbon monoxide over a copper-chromium-iron-oxide catalyst to yield hydrogen and CO2) is of paramount importance to the chemical industry, as it is a primary route to producing H2…
Recently, Tosoh Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.tosoh.com) has applied a new, proprietary oxocatalyst in the oxychlorination process for making ethylene dichloride (EDC) from ethylene, HCl, and O2 in its vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) manufacturing process. The performance boost anticipated from simulation…
After four years of project development and execution, the new PolyFuel unit at Petrobrazi petroleum refinery in Romania has been started-up and is fully functional since April 2019. Based on the PolyFuel technology licensed by Axens (Rueil-Malmaison, France; www.axens.net), the…
An international team, including staff from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kaist; Daejeon, South Korea; www.kaist.ac.kr), led by Kaist’s professor Jeung Ku Kang, has developed a technology to analyze the gas adsorption behavior of molecules of each…
The latest valves are designed to last in challenging chemical applications, increasing uptime and safety As operational efficiency and safety continue to be top priorities in the chemical process industries (CPI), processors are demanding increased reliability from their equipment, and…
Solar desalination Researchers at Rice University (Houston, Tex.; www.rice.edu) working on nanophotonics-enabled solar membrane distillation (NESMD) have found that concentrating sunlight on small areas of the desalination membrane leads to a non-linear improvement in performance in vapor pressure, which forces…
A modular, fuel-cell-like assembly featuring specially developed microbial communities is capable of producing pure hydrogen from a wide range of organic wastes. Developed by startup company Electro-Active Technologies (Oak Ridge, Tenn.; https://electroactive.tech), the microbial electrolysis system is now in the…
An international group of scientists has created a bowl-shaped electrode that can efficiently convert CO2 into carbon-based fuels and chemicals. The group includes scientists from the University of Bath (Bath, UK; www.bath.ac,uk), Fudan University (Shanghai, China; www.fudan.edu.cn), and the Shanghai…
The use of direct reduced iron (DRI; sponge iron) and hot briquetted iron (HBI) is expected to continue to grow due to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the growing number of electric arc furnaces (EAFs) in service…