Today, the cost of enzymes continues to make bioethanol uncompetitive as a fuel. Eliminating the need for amylases, which are used to hydrolyze starch into fermentable sugars, would be a key step toward reducing the operating costs for producing bioethanol.…
Carbon-negative technology being commercialized by Global Thermostat LLC (New York, N.Y.; www.globalthermostat.com) removes carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere using low-cost waste process heat from industrial processes. The technology works in a similar fashion to cogeneration approaches and could transform…
The major drawback of existing membranes for desalination plants is that the membranes are not tolerant of oxidizing agents, such as chlorine. To overcome this drawback, a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne (www.unimelb.edu.au) and CSIRO (Melbourne, Australia;…
A new pulsation dampener benefits from a design that can reportedly decrease energy usage. The Expulse, a flexible, inline pulsation dampener recently released by Flowrox Inc. (Linthicum, Md; www.flowrox.us), consists of a reinforced outer hose and an expansive inner hose,…
Construction is set to begin on a biorefinery in Oregon this summer that will manufacture bio-based jet fuel and diesel from forest and sawmill residues. When it begins producing biofuels at the end of 2016, it will be capable of…
Industrial gases specialist Messer Group GmbH (Bad Soden, Germany; www.messergroup.com) has developed a new cryogenic technology that makes it possible to use liquid nitrogen (LN2) to cool high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cables down to –209°C, which is significantly lower than that…
Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) have demonstrated an efficient desalination process using a porous graphene-based desalination membrane. While the thinness of the freestanding graphene (roughly 0.3 nm) allows for significantly higher flux than traditional…
Nanocellulose pilot Sappi Ltd. (Johannesburg; South Africa; www.sappi.com) will build a pilot-scale plant for low-cost nanocellulose (Cellulose NanoFibrils; CNF) production at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus (Sittard-Geleen, the Netherlands; www.brightlands.com). The pilot plant will test the manufacturing of dry re-dispersible CNF…
XstalBio Ltd. (Glasgow, U.K.; www.xstalbio.com) has recently been issued a patent (US 8,932,715) covering the use of precipitation-stabilizing additives for the manufacture of dry powders of therapeutic proteins, including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Compared to lyophilization, the XstalBio precipitation process offers…
Earlier this year, Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/chemicals) has developed a new process for making diphenyl carbonate (DPC), a monomer used for making polycarbonate (PC) resins. This new route to DPC uses only an alcohol, phenol and CO2…