JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. (JX_NOE; Tokyo, Japan; www.noe.jx-group.co.jp) plans to construct the first commercial plant to utilize its high-severity fluid catalytic cracking (HS-FCC) technology, which has been demonstrated to generate higher ethylene and propylene yields compared to conventional…
Last June, Showa Denko K.K. (SDK; Tokyo, Japan; www.sdk.co.jp) started commercial operation of its new 100,000-ton/yr ethyl acetate plant at Oita Complex. The new plant is the first commercial facility in Japan to use the company’s proprietary production-process technology. The…
The effective removal of Cs+ ions from contaminated groundwater, seawater, and radioactive nuclear waste is crucial for public health and for the operation of nuclear power plants. Although several methods for the removal of Cs+ ions have been developed, there…
Chemists from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and technology (AIST; Tsukuba City, Japan; www.aist.go.jp) have developed a procedure for making the catalysts used in catalytic converters for treating the exhaust from diesel engines. The process, developed with support…
What is said to be the world’s first fermentation pathway from methane to lactic acid has been demonstrated by Calysta, Inc. (Menlo Park, Calif.; www.calysta.com). The fermentation process begins with an organism that feeds off of methane rather than typical…
The research group of Shigeki Matsunaga, associate professor at the University of Tokyo (Japan; www.f.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~kanai), in collaboration with Ken Sakata at Hoshi University, has developed a new Co-based catalyst system that outperforms the existing rhodium-based catalyst system for the production…
Outotec Oyj (Espoo, Finland; www.outotec.com) has developed a new chloride-based leaching process for recovering nickel from nickel matte — a commercial intermediate product of nickel smelting that contains about 65% of nickel. Developed since the 1980s, originally for Cu recovery…
A new remediation approach for industrial heavy-metal waste has been developed by Lewis Environmental Services, Inc. (LES; Pittsburgh, Pa.; www.lesvc.com). The patented Enviro-Clean process adsorbs heavy metals from liquid waste streams onto a bed of specially treated granular activated carbon.…
Advance in UF module The latest offering of ultrafiltration systems from Evoqua Water Technologies (Alpharetta, Ga.; www.evoqua.com) incorporates an advanced polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane into a hydraulically balanced, modular filtration system. Known as Memcor CPII, the product employs a…
A Korean team has developed a carbon material that is as effective as graphene in applications, such as solar cells and semiconductor chips, using a process that requires only two steps instead of the usual eight. High-quality graphene is usually…