t News and Views . . . . . . .
manufacturing and supplying them in the UK; most recently for controlled atmospheres for carburising and hardening metallic automotive parts at AE Piston Products, Weymouth, Dorset. I
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Conductive polymer plant Finland's Neste Chemicals has announced the startup of a pilot plant for production of conductive polymers at Porvoo. Products will be based on polythiophene and polyaniline. The company's involvement in conductive polymers began nine years ago in California, when it set up a joint company with researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. With the opening of the new plant, Jan Erik Osterholm, Neste's project manager in R & D, said that the company had made "recent advances in widening processability of conductive polymers" and was now in the process of filing patents. Potential applications are numerous.
sodium sulphite spray, which strips out the sulphur contaminants in the gas. The sulphur laden stream from the stripper then passes to a membrane cell stack which recovers the sodium sulphite solution for recycle, and delivers a sodium sulphate solution saturated with sulphur dioxide. The SO 2 is then separated in a further stripping column. The concentrated SO2 gas obtained can be sold or processed into sulphuric acid or fertilisers, while the sodium sulphate can be sold to the pulp and paper or detergent industry.
Pyrogen deal Sepracor, of Massachusetts, and Associates of Cape Cod have signed a joint marketing agreement for the PyroBind product range, which remove endotoxin impurities (pyrogens) from bio-engineered therapeutic proteins. Both companies share worldwide marketing rights for laboratory applications, while Sepracor has exclusive rights for process development and production scale marketing.
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Artificial lung A three layer composite hollow fibre membrane has been developed for use in artificial lungs. The composite is made up of an ultra-thin polyurethane layer, supported between two microporous polyethylene layers to prevent serum leakage. Good gas transfer with no serum leakage is reported in in vitro tests (Artificial Organs, 14, 369-72}. The characteristics are said to be suitable for long-term uses, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.
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Membrane cell FGD system In cooperation with Florida Power & Light, Aquatech, subsidiary of Allied Signal, is testing a new membrane based flue gas desulphurisation process, in what is thought to be the first application of this type in the power industry. Known as Soxal, the process uses an ion exchange membrane cell to convert the sulphur dioxide contained in flue gas into marketable sulphur values. The process can also be used to treat other gases containing sulphur dioxide, such as those produced at metal sulphide smelters, incinerators and other chemical plants. In the process, the flue gas is scrubbed with a
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Protein products In France, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique and Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique have combined to start an enterprise to promote proteins produced from modified insect cells. The enterprise is called Protein Performance. The technology involves the use of insect virus ceils in applications such as vaccines, blood proteins, antibodies, and products for the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fine chemicals and agrochemical industries. The cells can be used to synthesise human proteins with greater efficiency than bacteria, yeast or rodent cells.
Membrane purge gas recovery system installed in Taiwan Chiyoda Corporation, the Japanese contractor, has selected a membrane separation system by Separex, Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA, for recovery of hydrogen from purge gas as part of a refinery upgrade for Chinese Petroleum Corporation at Kaosiung, Taiwan.
Membrane Technology
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