Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) are attractive because of the low cost and wide availability of natural gas, plus the ability to connect to residential and business gas lines for fueling. Among the challenges for using natural gas as a fuel…
Desalination Recently, Formosa Petrochemical Corp. (FPCC; Mailiao, Taiwan; www.fpcc.com.tw) commissioned IDE Technologies (Kadima, Israel; www.ide-tech.com) to build a desalination plant in Yunlin County, Taiwan that will be the first large-scale application for IDE’s high-purity boron-removal process. The three-step process combines…
To provide corrosion protection and long life, steel products are galvanized by immersion into kettles containing molten zinc. These galvanizing kettles need to be checked periodically to monitor rates of corrosion in order to avoid a catastrophic spillage of molten…
A new company — Tsubame BHB Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan; www.tsubame-bhb.co.jp) — has been established to commercialize the world’s first on-site production of ammonia for supplying amino-acid synthesis, fermentation materials and fertilizers. The company — a joint venture of Ajinomoto…
Researchers at Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.; www.princeton.edu) have developed a water treatment technique that injects carbon dioxide gas into a stream of water to separate suspended particles that would be difficult to remove by sedimentation or by microbes. The system,…
Additive manufacturing (3-D printing) has quickly gained popularity, due in part to its potential for rapidly creating customized parts. However, one inherent limitation of additive manufacturing — specifically the high-speed fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique — is the potential for…
Although there are several ways to reduce the phenol concentration in industrial effluent, they each have drawbacks. Chemical treatment, such as adsorption and stripping, is fast but expensive, and the chemical degradation of phenol leads to the formation of toxic…
A new electrochemical water-treatment process developed in the laboratory of T. Alan Hatton, professor of chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge; web.mit.edu), employs functionalized electrodes to selectively remove contaminants, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, at extremely low…
On May 31, Climeworks (Hinwill/Zurich, Switzerland; www.climeworks.com) inaugurated its — and the world’s — first commercial plant that captures CO2 directly from air. The Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility, located at the waste-utilization plant of KEZO in Hinwill, Switzerland, will…
A spray-drying technology that applies an electrical charge to feedstock as it exits the atomizing nozzle allows significant reductions in processing temperature and can eliminate downstream processing steps. The charge application can improve control over particle morphology, lengthen shelflife of…