Drinking water can be contaminated with micropollutants, including steroid hormones that are used as medical substances and contraceptives. Although their concentration in wastewater may be only a few nanograms per liter, this small amount can already damage human health and…
Smart Stir Bar Scientists at the University of Warwick (Coventry, U.K.; www.warwick.ac.uk) have developed a magnetic stir bar with an integrated process monitoring system. Described in a recent issue of ACS Sensors, the Smart Stirrer has an integrated microprocessor and…
A new project has been selected by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Org. (NEDO; Tokyo, Japan; www.nedo.go.jp) that aims to recover useful salts from desalination brine or seawater, as well as mineralizing CO2 into a useful product. The…
The Coretec Group Inc. (Ann Arbor, Mich.; www.thecoretecgroup.com) recently entered a supply partnership with specialty chemical company Evonik Industries AG (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) in which Evonik will produce cyclohexasilane (CHS; Si6 H12) for application development using intellectual property developed by…
Silicon is seen as a promising alternative to graphite in lithium-ion battery (LIB) anodes, due to its abundance and higher energy-storage capability — silicon is said to store ten times more energy than graphite in LIB applications. However, manufacturing processes…
Recent work by a team of researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; www.ornl.gov) and the University of Tennessee (Knoxville; www.utk.edu) has brought cost-effective, fluorinated carbon molecular-sieve membranes within closer reach. To make the membrane, the researchers…
Researchers from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia; www.unsw.edu.au), led by professor Rose Amal, have shown that by making zinc oxide at very high temperatures using a technique called flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), they can create nanoparticles that…
A new sustainable rubber that can, with an amine catalyst, be repaired and returned to its original strength in minutes, has been discovered by researchers from Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia; www.flinders.edu.au), the University of Western Australia (Perth), and the University…
By modifying a traditional treatment method for acid mine drainage (AMD), researchers at Penn State University (PSU; State College, Pa.; www.psu.edu) were able to both reduce the amount of chemicals required for treatment and increase the amount of rare earth…
Leistritz Pumpen GmbH (Nuremberg, Germany; www.leistritz.com) has recently introduced Flexcore, the first screw pump capable of adapting to a wide range of installation situations. “With Flexcore, Leistritz has now created a globally groundbreaking innovation — a pump class that, for…