New reactor could save millions when making ingredients for plastics and rubber from natural gas

With oil production dropping, a process using natural gas is needed to avert a shortage of a workhorse chemical used for automotive parts, cleaning products and more

29-Mar-2024 - A new way to make an important ingredient for plastics, adhesives, carpet fibers, household cleaners and more from natural gas could reduce manufacturing costs in a post-petroleum economy by millions of dollars, thanks to a new chemical reactor designed by University of Michigan engineers. The ...

Anton Paar Acquires Brabender GmbH & Co. KG

Integration as Anton Paar TorqueTec GmbH

09-Aug-2023 - On August 1, 2023, Anton Paar acquired the German company Brabender, which will be integrated into the Anton Paar Group as Anton Paar TorqueTec GmbH. The effective, retroactive date of the acquisition is January 1, 2023. The company, based in Duisburg, Germany, offers measurement and process ...

Looking for Start-up (ideas) in chemical engineering, chemistry and biotechnology

ACHEMA Start-Up Award

12-Apr-2023 - In the run-up to ACHEMA 2024, DECHEMA, the Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain and the High-Tech Gründerfonds are announcing the ACHEMA Start-up Award to support creators of tomorrow in paving the way for innovations in chemistry, process engineering and biotechnology! On the road from ...

Researchers develop plastic film that can kill viruses using room lights

Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a ground-breaking plastic film that can kill viruses that land on its surface with room light

12-Sep-2022 - The self-sterilising film is the first of its kind – it is low cost to produce, can be readily scaled and could be used for disposable aprons, tablecloths, and curtains in hospitals. It is coated with a thin layer of particles that absorb UV light and produce reactive oxygen species – ROS. These ...

Deep Learning despite sparse data

DFG research group focuses on evaluation of chemical process data

29-Jul-2022 - The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the new research group "Deep Learning on sparse chemical process data" for four years with around 3.5 million euros. It is coordinated at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern (TUK). The group is working on making Deep Learning methods, a ...

Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste

“This work really demonstrates the power of bringing together different disciplines, from synthetic biology to chemical engineering to artificial intelligence”

29-Apr-2022 - An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days. This discovery, published in Nature, could help solve one of the world’s most ...

Removing toxic mercury from contaminated water

22-Nov-2018 - Water which has been contaminated with mercury and other toxic heavy metals is a major cause of environmental damage and health problems worldwide. Now, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, present a totally new way to clean contaminated water, through an electrochemical ...

A path to sustainable and biodegradable polyesters

04-Jun-2018 - There's a good chance you've touched something made out of the polyolefin polymer today. It's often used in polyethylene products like plastic bags or polypropylene products like diapers. As useful as polyolefins are in society, they continue to multiply as trash in the environment. Scientists ...

Don’t wait for a unicorn: investing in low-carbon tech now will save money

22-May-2018 - Waiting for a ‘unicorn technology’ that provides green energy at low cost could be more expensive than adopting low-carbon energy technologies now. Researchers from Imperial College London say if Britain invested more in today’s low-carbon energy technologies, it would save more money in the long ...

A simple method etches patterns at the atomic scale

27-Apr-2018 - A precise, chemical-free method for etching nanoscale features on silicon wafers has been developed by a team from Penn State and Southwest Jiaotong University and Tsinghua University in China. In standard lithography, a photosensitive film is deposited on a silicon wafer and a pattern called a ...