http://www.che.com Chemical Engineering en-us 2013 Sun, 19 May 2013 7:00:13 EDT Naomi Shibasaki-Kitagawa at Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan; www.che.tohoku.ac.jp/~rpel/) has developed a continuous reactor for making biodiesel fuel from low-quality waste, such as cooking oil. Her production process uses an expanded-bed reactor packed with an anion-exchange resin that has both catalytic... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10442.html Wed, 1 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT The Circa Group (Melbourne, Australia; www.circagroup.com.au) and the Green Chemistry Center of Excellence at the University of York (U.K.; www.york.ac.uk) have signed an agreement to develop and commercialize a novel “green” solvent called Cyrene. Cyrene is a polar aprotic solvent — a... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10449.html Wed, 1 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT Last month, Air Products (Allentown, Pa.; www.airproducts.com) announced that it has licensed its proprietary adsorption-based, monomer recovery process to custom process equipment supplier Cryo Technologies (Allentown, Pa.; www.cryotechnologies.com). The hybrid Air Products technology combines a partial... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10453.html Wed, 1 May 2013 0:00:00 EDT A process developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (www.uta.edu) uses copper-based semiconductor nanoscale-rod arrays and solar radiation to carry out a photoelectroreduction of carbon dioxide to methanol. The process offers a pathway to utilize the greenhouse gas CO2 as a feedstock... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10364.html Mon, 1 Apr 2013 0:00:00 EDT Conventional methanation — the reaction of CO and H2 (synthesis gas) to form methane — has recently become important as a way to produce substitute natural gas (SNG) from gasified coal in regions of the world where natural gas is scarce (see Chem. Eng., August 2010, pp. 14–17). Now, an... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10243.html Fri, 1 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST Reductions in power consumption by over 30% have been observed at a full-scale formaldehyde production plant by introducing a new design in which a pressurization blower is replaced by a turbocharger that is powered by the exhaust gas from the emission control system (ECS). The plant using this design was... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10257.html Fri, 1 Mar 2013 0:00:00 EST Composite liquid and slurry boiler fuels have been produced from mixtures of various waste materials, such as biomass, coal- and crude-oil-processing residues, wood and other combustible substances, in a collaboration between researchers at the University of Rhode Island (Kingston, R.I.) and Podgorny... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10169.html Fri, 1 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST Researchers at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s (DOE) Ames Laboratory (Ames, Iowa; www.ameslab.gov) led by Ryan Ott have developed a process for recovering rare-earth (RE) metals from magnet scraps. The process involves first crushing neodymium-iron-boron magnet scraps and placing the pieces in a stainless... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10170.html Fri, 1 Feb 2013 0:00:00 EST Plans are underway to field-test a process that removes more than 90 % of the carbon dioxide from power-plant flue gas, while reducing both the energy input and operating costs by 50 % compared to conventional amine-based CO2-scrubbing technology. The so-called carbonate-looping process has undergone four... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10066.html Tue, 1 Jan 2013 0:00:00 EST A small-scale ceramic membrane reactor to convert natural gas to transportable liquids in a single step is being developed by Ceramatec, Inc. (Salt Lake City, Utah; www.ceramatec.com) under a $1.7-million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA, Washington, D.C.... http://www.che.com/chementator/process_technology/10067.html Tue, 1 Jan 2013 0:00:00 EST