In The News
A less expensive way to make graphene
A team from RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia; www.rmit.edu.au) and the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (Warangal, India; www.nitw.ac.in) has developed a cost-effective and eco-friendly way of producing graphene using a eucalyptus polyphenol solution extracted from eucalyptus bark. RMIT’s professor Suresh…
Chementator Briefs
Nanofiltration Toray Industries, Inc. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toray.com) has created what is claimed to be the world’s highest-level nanofiltration membrane. The new membrane triples the permeation performance of conventional models while enhancing ion and organic-compound separation from aqueous solutions. In developing…
Business News: September 2019
Plant Watch Ineos breaks ground for Bayport ASA plant August 12, 2019 — Ineos Styrolution GmbH (Frankfurt, Germany; www.ineos-styrolution.com) hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for its new acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) plant in Bayport, Tex. The new site, which is designed…
3D Printing: Foundations for Mainstream Adoption
The seemingly boundless versatility of additive manufacturing makes it an area ripe for fast evolution, but critical industrial applications also demand verification and reliability There is no doubt that 3D printing (also known industrially as additive manufacturing; AM) has set…
Stabilized, purified silk protein serves as green chemistry platform
Scientists have long sought ways to take advantage of the high strength of natural silk protein in new materials, but its incorporation has been hindered by the inability to stabilize the protein in water. Now, a company known as Evolved…
Driving Toward a Hydrogen-based Economy
Technology developments are progressing towards large-scale production of ‘green’ hydrogen, along with improved methods for storage and transportation The world has an important opportunity to tap into hydrogen’s vast potential to become a critical part of a more sustainable and…
Pilot plant slated for a H2-based process to make DRI from iron-ore fines
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…
Poly-diketoenamines could allow closed-loop plastics recycling
Conventional plastics are difficult to recycle because end-of-life processing generally is either energy-intensive or alters the physical properties of the materials. A team of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, Calif.; www.lbl.gov) and the University of California at…
MOFs that mimic leaves for enhanced performance
Chemists from the research group of Stefania Grecea at the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA; the Netherlands; www.uva.nl) Research Priority Sustainable Chemistry have devised a way to enhance the practical performance of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). By using leaves from the black…
Thermal insulation mimics polar-bear hair
Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China (Hefei; https://en.ustc.edu.cn), led by professor Shu-Hong Yu, have developed a thermal insulator that mimics the structure of individual polar-bear hairs, and have scaled toward a material made of many hairs.…