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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Breakthrough process for directly converting methane to methanol

04-Dec-2017 - The direct oxidation of methane--found in natural gas--into methanol at low temperatures has long been a holy grail. Now, researchers at Tufts have found a breakthrough way to accomplish the feat using a heterogeneous catalyst and cheap molecular oxygen, according to a paper published by a team ...

Direct conversion of methane to methanol

Catalyzed by gold-palladium nanoparticles

11-Sep-2017 - Liquid methanol is widely used as a feedstock for other chemicals and also has considerable potential as an alternative fuel source. However, converting methane--the primary component of abundant natural gas--into methanol is currently achieved by an indirect process which requires high heat and ...

Indestructible virus yields secret to creating incredibly durable materials

20-Jul-2017 - It's like the Superman of viruses, astonishingly tough and able to survive in an environment that would dissolve flesh and bone. And now scientists have unlocked the secrets of its indestructibility, potentially allowing them to harness its remarkable properties to create super-durable materials ...

New chemical method could revolutionize graphene

16-Jun-2017 - University of Illinois at Chicago scientists have discovered a new chemical method that enables graphene to be incorporated into a wide range of applications while maintaining its ultra-fast electronics. Graphene, a lightweight, thin, flexible material, can be used to enhance the strength and ...

A big leap toward tinier lines

29-Mar-2017 - For the last few decades, microchip manufacturers have been on a quest to find ways to make the patterns of wires and components in their microchips ever smaller, in order to fit more of them onto a single chip and thus continue the relentless progress toward faster and more powerful computers. ...

In Flow State

03-Mar-2017 - Ever wonder why you have to shake your bottle of ketchup or mustard before pouring? Or why, to get out of quicksand, you must move slowly? Or why you can run on the surface of a suspension of cornstarch in water, but you’d sink if you tried to walk on it? The common feature of all these ...

Developing a catalytic conveyor belt

20-Feb-2017 - Capitalizing on previous studies in self-powered chemo-mechanical movement, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering and Penn State University's Department of Chemistry have developed a novel method of transporting particles that utilizes chemical reactions to ...