Thermoplastic starch, a biodegradable polysaccharide, is an attractive material for environmentally friendly plastics, but its cost and molecular properties have prevented it from being used in thin films. A process for a new starch plastic resin allows the material to…
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been touted as game-changing nanomaterials in a wide variety of areas, but their actual commercial success has been less than expected thus far. To a large extent, the difficulty has centered around the tendency of CNTs…
Many indicators point to current success and prosperity for U.S. petroleum refineries, but simultaneously, the industry is facing a future of massive changes in energy and transportation By many measures, the U.S. petroleum-refining industry is succeeding and prospering. According to…
High-temperature synthesis of ceramics and other materials normally requires a cost-intensive inerting atmosphere to prevent oxidation. Now, researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany; www.fz-juelich.de) have developed a process — the molten salt shielded synthesis/sintering (MS3) process — that used molten salts…
Coupled with advanced analytics and networking capabilities, today’s smart sensors help processors optimize the facility Picture a piece of equipment not just monitoring its own health, but also automatically ordering the part it requires and, when it notes that the…
In late February, construction began on a test facility that will be used to demonstrate a CO2-capture process being developed by JGC Corp. (Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.com) and Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. (JOGMEC; Tokyo; www.jogmec.go.jp). When the Texas-based…
Plant Watch Asahi Kasei plans LIB separator capacity expansions March 14, 2019 — Asahi Kasei Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp) will enhance its manufacturing infrastructure for lithium-ion battery (LIB) separator products at the company’s existing facilities in Moriyama, Japan and North…
The novel performance characteristics and tunability of quantum dots make them a promising nanomaterial in numerous emerging applications Quantum dots (QDs) represent a broad group of semiconducting nanoparticles that feature a unique combination of optical and electronic properties. For example,…
New column internals boost efficiency and improve reliability of distillation towers In the chemical process industries (CPI), the majority of separations are done via distillation columns. And, when the rest of the process relies upon those columns, inefficiencies, bottlenecks and…
‘Green’ steelmaking Seamlessly following the successful completion of the GrInHy project (Green Industrial Hydrogen via reversible high-temperature electrolysis) in February, the GrInHy2.0 project was launched last month at the Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH steelworks (Germany; www.salzgitter-flachstahl.de). Together with partners Sunfire GmbH…