Titanium dioxide is well known as a photocatalyst, and is especially promising for degrading organic-based contaminant molecules in wastewater. Researchers from China and Australia have reported, in a recent issue of the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, that controlling…
A new technique for making less-expensive, more-efficient biological enzyme hybrids could have widespread applications, including in water recycling, drug manufacturing and molecular biology. The technique, developed by a team from Australia and the U.S., involves using a vortex fluidic device…
A Korean team has proposed an approach for passive radiative cooling. The team, which includes professors Junsuk Rho and Jin Kon Kim of Pohang Universiy of Science and Technology (Pohang, South Korea; www.postech.ac.kr) and professor Heon Lee of Korea University…
A process developed by Evrnu (Seattle, Wash.; www.evrnu.com) to regenerate cotton fibers from waste fabric and post-consumer garments has been used to produce ton quantities of recycled cotton fiber for testing. An economically viable process for recycling cotton would have…
Site commissioning is underway at a facility in Nebraska that uses plasma pyrolysis to generate hydrogen gas and carbon black from natural gas without any local carbon dioxide emissions. The developer, Monolith Materials (Lincoln, Neb.; www.monolithmaterials.com), scaled up the process…
A new rejuvenator technology aims to improve the chemistry and service life of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP). The Invigorate additive, developed by Colorbiotics (Ames, Iowa; www.colorbiotics.com) based on Iowa State University research (www.iastate.edu), helps overcome issues with asphaltene aggregation and…
A new project in Canada will build a pilot facility to demonstrate a carbon-neutral production strategy for battery-grade graphite materials. Nouveau Monde Graphite (Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Québec, Canada; www.nouveaumonde.ca) has signed an agreement with Olin Corp. (Clayton, Mo.; www.olin.com) to construct two…
DESALINATION The challenge for large-scale desalination is to improve the performance of membranes used for reverse osmosis. One promising method is to introduce artificial water channels (AWCs) into synthetic membranes, to imitate the aquaporins of biological proteins for transporting water.…
The cryptography working group within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF; Fremont, Calif.; www.ieft.org) standards organization has chosen the CPace protocol — developed by Endress + Hauser AG (Reinach, Switzerland; www.endress.com) — as a recommended method for use in internet…
Filtration is being investigated as an alternative to thermal separation methods (such as distillation and evaporation) in many applications because of the potential energy savings, but conventional filtration membranes, such as those used in water desalination, are often not robust…