Recycling copper Steinert Elektromagnetbau GmbH (Cologne, Germany; www.steinert.de) has recently installed its first XSS-F unit — said to be the worlds first inline system designed to extract copper from shredded ferrous scrap. Installed at a German recycling yard, the…
Engineers at Algaeventure Systems (Marysville, Ohio; www.algaevs.com) have developed a system for separating liquids from solids and semisolids at very low energies. Originally targeted at harvesting and dewatering microalgae where the technology could remove a major cost barrier, the separation…
Electricity generation of 240 kW has been demonstrated in a Brayton-cycle system that uses supercritical carbon dioxide as the working fluid. Developed by researchers at Sandia National Laboratory (Albuquerque, N.M.; www.sandia.gov) and built by Barber Nichols Inc. (Arvada, Colo.; www.barber-nichols.com),…
Last month, at the AIChE Spring Meeting in Chicago, Henry Kister, director of Fractionation Technology at Fluor Corp. (Aliso Viejo, Calif.; www.fluor.com) presented a patent pending process (U.S. Patent Application WO/2011/016797) that promises to cut energy demand and capital costs…
M Technique Co. (M Tech; Osaka, Japan; www.m-technique.co.jp) has commercialized the Ulrea SS-300, a scaled up version of the Ulrea SS-11 — a forced thin-film microreactor. With a production capacity nearly ten times higher than its predecessor, the Ulrea SS-300…
In spring of this year, Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM; Decatur, Ill.; www.adm.com) plans full operation of a chemical plant based on soybean and canola oils as renewable feedstock. Products of the plant will include refined glycerin, propylene glycol and…
Improvements in the design of ethylene oxide (EtO) scrubbers made by The Clean Air Group, Croll Reynolds Co. (Parsippany, N.J.; www.croll.com) have helped users meet increasingly stringent regulations for EtO emissions, as well as meet tower height restrictions. “Our designs…
A research team from the University of South Australia (Adelaide; www.unisa.edu.au) and the East China Normal University (Shanghai; www.ecnu.edu.cn) has developed a capacitive deionization technology (CDI) that uses graphene-like nanoflakes as electrodes, instead of conventionally used activated carbon (AC) materials.…
A desalination system developed by Watervap LLC (Marble Hill, Ga.; www.h2ovap.com) separates saltwater of any concentration into highly purified water and dry solid minerals with high efficiency. The company’s Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) process represents a low-cost alternative to brine…
Tokyo Chemical Industry Co. (TCI; Tokyo; www.tokyokasei.co.jp) is planning full-scale production of a new palladium-complex catalyst, trade-named SingaCycle-E1, for performing Heck-Mizoroki carbon-carbon coupling reactions and the Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction — both reactions of importance for producing pharmaceuticals. TCI says SingaCycle-E1…