Latest News: Technologies
Biobased succinic acid pilot effort underway
Pilot-scale production of biobased succinic acid from dextrose has been demonstrated by Myriant Technologies (Quincy, Mass., www.myriant.com). The firm expects commercial production by mid-2010. The succinic-acid process follows Myriant’s successful commercialization with partner Purac (Blair, Neb.; www.purac.com) of a biobased…
Green honors
In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agancy (EPA; Washington, D.C.; www.epa.gov) announced the winners of the 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. Winners of the Challenge, which promotes R&D of less hazardous alternatives to existing technologies that reduce or eliminate…
Making SunCatchers instead of cars
Stirling Energy Systems (SES; Phoenix, Ariz.; www.stirlingenergy.com) and Tessera Solar (Houston; www.tesserasolar.com) recently unveiled four, newly designed solar-power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (Albuquerque, N.M.). The refined design of SunCatchers will be used in…
A less-expensive way to make platinum catalysts
The cost of producing platinum catalysts could be reduced by up to 90% by a process being developed jointly by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, Livermore, Calif.; www.llnl.gov) and Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.; www.stanford.edu). The process involves the deposition of…
Extracting drinking water from humidity
An energy-autonomous process for capturing air humidity for drinking water has been developed by scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology (IGB; Stuttgart; www.fraunhofer.de) and Logos-Innovationen GmbH (Bodnegg, both Germany; www.logos-innovationen.com). The concept is suitable for supplying…
This photocatalyst works with visible light
A photocatalyst that uses visible light to deodorize and disinfect air has been developed by Hiroshi Taoda at the Materials Research Institute for Sustainable Development, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Chubu, Nagoya, (AIST; Chubu, Nagoya, Japan; www.aist.go.jp).…
A gypsum-free, energy-saving route to lactic acid
Uhde GmbH (Dortmund, Germany; www.uhde.biz) is developing a new process for producing lactic acid (LA) — a monomer for making the biodegradable plastic polylactic acid (PLA) — that does not require a distillation step. As a result, savings in steam…
Making solar panels even greener
Last month, Malibu GmbH & Co, KG (Bielefeld, Germany; www.malibu-solar.de) started up a thin-film photovoltaic-module fabrication facility that is claimed to be the world’s first to eliminate the use of nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) — a greenhouse gas with a significant…
The missing piece for wireless process control
Last month, Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS; Phoenix, Ariz.; www.honeywell.com/ps) unveiled the process industry’s first redundant wireless system gateway (WSG), connecting the last major gap in the path to wireless process control. WSGs manage data between wireless field instrumentation and a…
New catalyst boosts liquid-fuel yield from heavy hydrocarbons
A new zeolite catalyst that increases yields of light cycle oil (LCO) from high molecular weight “bottoms” hydrocarbons in petroleum fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) units was commercialized last month by Grace-Davison, an operating segment of W.R. Grace & Co. (Columbia,…