Latest News: Technologies
A new tantalum line of heat exchangers for corrosive service
Last month, Alfa Laval AB (Lund, Sweden; www.alfalaval.com) introduced a new range of tantalum heat exchangers that offer the corrosion resistance of a solid-tantalum heat exchanger, but at a much lower investment cost. The heat exchangers are made of stainless…
Imitating nature leads to a separator for oil droplets
Separation of micron-sized oil droplets from water is difficult by conventional methods. A Chinese team has developed an oleophilic array of conical needle structures that can continuously collect micron-sized oil droplets from an oil-water mixture with high efficiency and high…
April Chementator Briefs
Ammonia synthesis Last month, Haldor Topsøe A/S (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) introduced a new ammonia-synthesis catalyst. Tradenamed KM 111, the new catalyst is a magnetite-based catalyst developed for optimal performance in the lower beds of NH3 converters. The KM 111 catalyst…
An inorganic paper for preserving information and other applications
A new kind of highly flexible and non-flammable inorganic paper that can be used for the permanent and safe storage of information has been developed by a team led by professor Ying-Jie Zhu, from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese…
An organic waste-to-biogas system to be scaled up in first installation
Construction will soon begin at a site in Korea on an anaerobic digester technology that converts organic waste and biomass to methane at high conversion rates, while also producing a fertilizer stream. Technology developer Bioconversions Solutions LLC (Exton, Pa.; www.bioconversionssolutions.com)…
Commercial debut for a low-cost stationary energy-storage system
A novel battery chemistry that uses a water-based electrolyte has allowed developer Aquion Energy Inc. (Pittsburgh, Pa.; www.aquionenergy.com) to achieve a low-cost and safe battery with long cycle life for stationary energy-storage applications. The Aquion battery technology, now entering its…
In-situ chemical remediation of soil and groundwater
Geo-Cleanse International, Inc. (Mata- wan, N.J.; www.geo-cleanse.com) has developed a new method for ridding soil and groundwater of chloromethanes, Freon and other difficult-to-treat contaminants without the need for digging and offsite soil treatment. The Geo-Cleanse process was inspired by research…
New ceramic membranes for oxygen separation
Researchers from Curtin University’s Fuels and Energy Technology Institute (Perth, Western Australia; www.curtin.edu.au), led by professors Gordon Parkinson and Chun-Zhu Li, have won the Mitsubishi Corp. Western Australia Innovator of the Year award for creating a new membrane that speeds…
Recovering and purifying byproduct and waste ethylene glycol
GlyEco Inc. (Phoenix, Ariz.; www.glyeco.com) has developed a process for recovering and purifying ethylene glycol from a number of industrial byproduct and waste streams so that it meets an ASTM International (West Conshohocken, Pa.; www.astm.org; formerly American Society for Testing…
Global Air-Pollution Regulations: Variation is the Norm
The chemical process industries (CPI) are, by their very nature, global in scope. While chemical process operators share many common aspects (in terms of the use of chemical engineering unit operations), the location of their operation brings about different requirements…