Acidity is a critical parameter in the chemical process industries, and accurate measurements of pH can be important indicators for process quality control. A refreshed understanding of pH measurement can help to overcome process-specific challenges to measurement and to select…
An organosilica material with unique structural properties due to its nanoscale architecture has been used to extract hydrocarbons and other organic contaminants from water. Marketed as Osorb by ABS Materials Inc. (Wooster, Ohio; www.absmaterials.com), the nanostructured glass represents a platform…
A newly demonstrated system for removing trace levels of heavy metals from water combines the positive traits of two existing technologies — chemical precipitation and electrowinning — while avoiding drawbacks of each. An engineering team at Brown University (Providence, R.I.;…
A microwave vessel heating system — said to be the first commercial, industrial-scale system of its kind — has been developed by Marion Mixers (Marion; www.marionmixers.com) in partnership with AMTek Microwave (Cedar Rapids, both Iowa; www.4amtek.com) with patent pending technology…
Oji Paper Co. (OJI; www.ojipaper.co.jp), in collaboration with Nippon Steel Engineering Co. (www.nsc-eng.co.jp) and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; all Tokyo, Japan; www.aist.go.jp), has started pilot testing of a new, integrated process for making cellulose-based…
A reduction of CO2 emissions of 50% can be achieved in steelmaking, using renewable carbon from biomass, according to The Australian Steel Industry CO2 Breakthrough Program, an R&D program conducted by a team from: BlueScope Steel Research (Port Kembla, New…
A team from the School of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia (Penang; www.eng.usm.my) has carried out a study for optimizing non-catalytic supercritical (SC) methanol extraction and transesterification of Jatropha curcas seeds to produce biodiesel fuel. Jatropha curcas is a species…
To date, determination of the shear forces exerted on vessel walls by moving fluids has required inferring the value from other measurements. Now Lenterra Inc. (Newark, N.J.; www.lenterra.com) has introduced the first instrument capable of direct measurement of wall-shear forces…
The Brinkman method is one of several approaches used to predict the effective viscosity of oil-water mixtures, and is effective in simulations when one or the other phase is dominant. However, a significant level of uncertainty exists in mixtures where…
New cellulase enzyme Last month, Codexis, Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.; www.codexis.com) introduced the CodeXyme Cellulase enzyme product line for converting biomass to sugar. The company is in its final stages of customizing the enzymes with currrent partners, and plans…