Discovery of a new catalytic promoter on par with decades of study

Discovered in a few weeks and with fewer than 100 experiments

03-Jun-2024 - Addressing climate change demands rethinking of established chemical processes on a timescale of years rather than decades as in traditional R&D cycles. In collaboration with BasCat (UniCat BASF JointLab), a team of researchers from the Theory Department at the Fritz Haber Institute developed an ...

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 ...

Dow and Evonik announce startup of hydrogen peroxide to propylene glycol (HPPG) pilot plant

Innovative technology offer flexibility, lower costs, and a smaller environmental footprint

06-Nov-2023 - Dow and Evonik are proud to announce the successful start-up and operation of a pioneering hydrogen peroxide to propylene glycol (HPPG) pilot plant at Evonik’s site in Hanau, Germany. Collaboratively developed by Dow and Evonik, the plant uses the distinct HYPROSYN® method to enable the direct ...

Process converts polyethylene bags, plastics to polymer building blocks

Catalysts disassemble polymer while adding ethylene, producing propylene, the building blocks of polypropylene

03-Oct-2022 - Polyethylene plastics — in particular, the ubiquitous plastic bag that blights the landscape — are notoriously hard to recycle. They’re sturdy and difficult to break down, and if they’re recycled at all, they’re melted into a polymer stew useful mostly for decking and other low-value ...

New, highly efficient catalyst for propylene production

Innovative catalyst for the synthesis of propylene has potential benefits for the chemical industry and carbon recycling

08-Feb-2022 - Propylene is a colourless, flammable hydrocarbon gas that is an important raw material for the production of a variety of petrochemicals. Due to increasing demand and limited global supply, there is a strong need to develop new, efficient technologies for its production. Researchers at Hokkaido ...

Solving the plastic shortage with a new chemical catalyst

New catalyst, which can make propylene from natural gas, is at least 10 times more efficient than current commercial catalysts

12-Jul-2021 - In a year that has already battered manufacturing supply chains, yet another shortage is complicating manufacturers' and consumers' lives: plastics, and the food packaging, automotive components, clothing, medical and lab equipment and countless other items that rely on them. But a new chemical ...

Scientists can predict and design single atom catalysts for important chemical reactions

Using fundamental calculations of molecular interactions, they created a catalyst with 100% selectivity in producing propylene

28-Jun-2021 - Researchers at Tufts University, University College London (UCL), Cambridge University and University of California at Santa Barbara have demonstrated that a catalyst can indeed be an agent of change. In a study published in Science, they used quantum chemical simulations run on supercomputers to ...

Porous Liquids Allow for Efficient Gas Separation

New material opens up the possibility of saving up to 80 percent of energy when separating raw materials for the plastics industry

14-Aug-2020 - Jointly with cooperation partners, a researcher of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has developed “porous liquids”: Nanoparticles, that are able to separate gas molecules of different sizes from each other, float – finely distributed – in a solvent. This is because the particles have empty ...

From petroleum to wood

Cost-efficient and more sustainable

17-Feb-2020 - An interdisciplinary team of bio-engineers and economists from KU Leuven has mapped out how wood could replace petroleum in the chemical industry. They not only looked at the technological requirements, but also whether that scenario would be financially viable. A shift from petroleum to wood ...

Evonik and Dow develop industrial-scale direct synthesis of propylene glycol from propylene and hydrogen peroxide

31-Oct-2019 - Dow and Evonik have entered into an exclusive technology partnership. Together, they plan to bring a unique method for directly synthesizing propylene glycol (PG) from propylene and hydrogen peroxide to market maturity. The basis for the method, named HYPROSYN™, has been created over the last few ...