Global Bioenergies (Evry, France; www.global-bioenergies.com) says that last month it developed a proprietary strain of microorganism that directly produces propylene by the fermentation of glucose. The company claims this is the first time propylene has been produced entirely by a…
An encapsulated, biodegradable drilling-fluid additive designed to reduce friction on drill bits and piping inside oil wells has been demonstrated successfully in more than 30 wells across North America following its launch in mid-2014. The lubricant product, known as Encapso,…
Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technologys (AIST) Interdisciplinary Research Center for Catalytic Chemistry (Tsukuba, Japan; www.aist.go.jp) have developed a new reaction process to synthesize aromatic urethane — a promising starting material for the production of…
A modular, skid-mounted hydrogen-production plant developed by Linde AG (Munich, Germany; www.linde.com) uses a modified version of conventional steam-methane reforming (SMR) to generate hydrogen from inexpensive natural gas, rather than relying on more costly methods of hydrogen production, such as…
New techniques and equipment for manufacturing cast components made from beryllium-aluminum alloys can reduce the cost significantly, allowing the high-performance materials to be considered for a wide range of applications beyond their initial uses in the aerospace industry. Beryllium-aluminum alloys…
Significant improvements to a process to extract vanadium, titanium and iron from the Mount Peake Vanadium-Titanium-Iron Project in the Northern Territory of Australia will be tested in a pilot plant now under construction and nearing completion. Results of the pilot-plant…
The Capitol SkyMine project in San Antonio, Tex. utilizes fluegas from an existing cement plant to manufacture salable chemicals while preventing the CO2 from reaching the atmosphere. Built by Skyonic Corp. (Austin, Tex.; www.skyonic.com), the project is said to be…
Division Radomiro Tomic of Codelco (Codelco Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile; Santiago; www.codelco.www) is adopting a bioleaching process to recover copper from low-grade ores. The process was developed by BioSigma S.A. — a joint venture (JV) of JX Nippon…
Last month, Chiyoda Corp. (Yokohama; www.chiyoda-corp.com) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (Tokyo, both Japan; www.mhi.com) received approval in principle (AIP) for a jointly developed floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility for the production of H2 and CO2 from associated…
A coating that can protect turbine-engine and waste-incinerator components against heat and oxidation has been developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT; Pfinztal, Germany; www.ict.fraunhofer.de). The coating consists of an outer topcoat made from hollow, aluminum-oxide…