A process that produces 75–85 gal of ethanol per dry ton of mixed cellulosic waste feed will be commercialized by BlueFire Ethanol (Irvine, Calif.; www.bluefireethanol.com). The plant, to be built in Lancaster, Calif., will convert 130 dry ton/d of feed…
Haldor Topsøe A/S (Lyngby, Denmark; www.topsoe.com) has signed a design contract with an undisclosed client in China for a new plant that will produce substitute natural gas (SNG). When the plant comes on stream in 2011, it will produce close…
Incineration is becoming the only viable method for sewage sludge disposal as landfilling or spreading sludge onto farmland is no longer permitted in some countries. Today, sludge is commonly incinerated in large, centralized incinerators or as an additive in coal-fired…
Last month, a photocatalytic water-cleaning system that removes organic and inorganic contaminants that are difficult to breakdown from wastewater was inaugurated at the German Aerospace Center (DLR; Stuttgart; www.dlr.de) facility in Lampildshausem. The so-called RayWOx system features a new type…
In February 2009, Talvivaara Mining Company Plc. (Espoo, Finland; www.talvivaara.com) delivered its first in a series of commercial shipments of metals to Norilsk Nickel Harjavalta refinery in Finland. Talvivaara expanded the crushing circuit and has restarted the metals precipitation process…
Last month, Nippon Oil Corp. (Tokyo, Japan; www.eneos.co.jp) started production bio-ETBE (ethyl tertiary butyl ether), which will be blended into gasoline as an alternative to ethanol as an oxygenate. Nippon Petroleum Refining Co., a subsidiary of Nippon Oil, inaugurated the…
Last month at Filtech (Wiesbaden, Germany; October 13–15), Fil Max Inc. (Brea, Calif.; www.fmxfiltration.com) exhibited a new application for its FMX vortex-generating, membrane-filtration technology — treating wastewater from a biogas plant. Fil Max installed its first commercial system — three…
This month, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI; Tokyo; www.mhi.co.jp) is starting up a demonstration plant for producing bioethanol from the straw of rice and wheat. Located at the Futami Farm of MHI Kobe Shipbuilding Plant, the facility — developed in…
A contract for the world’s first commercial transport-gasification facility was awarded to KBR (Houston, www.kbr.com) by Beijing Guoneng Yinghui Clean Energy Engineering Co. for a coal power plant in China’s Guangdong province. The two-phase project will showcase KBR’s transport integrated…
Last month, PAS, Inc. (Houston; www.pas.com) launched Integrity Automation Genome Software, said to be the world’s first software capable of analyzing assets, functionality and dataflow within and among automation and production systems. Integrity provides a universal framework for aggregating and…