Earlier this year, Coolbrook Oy (Helsinki, Finland; www.coolbrook.fi) received a €3.6-million grant from the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation Tekes to further develop its patented RotoDynamicReactor (RDR) technology, which has the potential to improve ethylene yields by 34% compared to…
FCC catalyst BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany; www.basf.com) recently launched Borotec, the newest evolution of its resid-oil fluid-catalytic-cracking (FCC) catalysts portfolio. Borotec is the latest innovation using BASF’s unique Boron-Based Technology (BBT) platform to provide mild- and moderate-resid-feed FCC units more…
A glassy solid-state electrolyte (SSE) developed by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin (UT; www.utexas.edu) will aid in the evolution of safer, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries. A major concern with the use of lithium- and sodium-ion batteries is the…
A pilot project set up by the University of California Davis (UC Davis; Davis, Calif.; www.ucdavis.edu), GE Water & Process Technologies (Trevose, Pa.; www.gewater.com) and wine-industry service provider Winesecrets LLC (www.winesecrets.com) seeks to capture rainwater for use in wine production,…
When compared to traditional refrigeration cycles, Peltier (thermoelectric) technology has many benefits, including no moving parts and no hazardous refrigerant chemicals. However, it has not yet been widely adopted into large-scale industrial processes (due to poor efficiency, inability to scale…
Scientists at Oregon State University (Corvallis; www.oregonstate.edu) have for the first time demonstrated the use of hydronium ions (H3O+) as charge carriers. The research opens another avenue of exploration for high-power, sustainable batteries for stationary power-storage applications. The research team,…
Efficient distillation Toyo Engineering Corp. (Toyo; Chiba, www.toyo-eng.co.jp) has completed construction for an energy-saving distillation system used in a project for Maruzen Petrochemical Co. (Tokyo, Japan; www.chemiway.co.jp). This system, tradenamed SuperHIDiC, has achieved an energy saving of over 50% compared…
Researchers from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR, Singapore; www.a-star.edu.sg) have developed low-cost, environmentally friendly iron-hydroxide coatings with unique fin-like shapes that absorb large amounts of pollutants, such as dyes, from drinking water, by means of a simple…
Today, ammonia continues to be manufactured by the Haber-Bosch process — an energy-intensive process that operates at high temperatures and pressures (above 400°C and 100 bars). For decades, researchers around the world have been looking for alternative routes to making…
United Technologies Research Center (UTRC; East Hartford, Conn.; www.utrc.utc.com) has been awarded a $2.7-million cooperative research agreement to further develop two technologies aimed at lowering the capital cost of flow batteries for electrical grid-energy storage. UTRC will lead the U.S.…