nanochemistry

Sinchrotron X rays on your tabletop

2010-10-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

According to a press release from the Imperial college of London, a new tabletop device generates bright, coherent X-rays similar to those produced in large facilities.
Such rays are useful to investigate the structure of materials at small length and time scales.

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NSF website offline.

2010-10-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

As researchers know, the NSF National Science Foundation is a government agency that provides major support to research on non-medical fields. As of Oct 28 the NSF website is offline. There are reports of a power outage or fire in the building, possibly related to lightning strikes.

We hope everybody is OK and things gets fixed soon, so they can get back to their regular supporting science schedule.

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350M Renova Biodiesel project in argentina

2010-07-10T09:29:00.001-07:00

New biodiesel mandates in Argentina will require increasing the biodiesel content in commercial diesel blends from 5 to 7%. Blends of up to 20% are envisioned for larger engines such as those used in agricultural machinery.

According to this article Molinos Rio de la Plata and other partners in Renova will invest 350 M to build a soybean processing plant and port in Timbúes, Santa Fe, Argentina.

Renova's current biodiesel capacity is 480.000 ton. Perez-Companc's company Molinos Rio de la Plata already operates a biodiesel plant with 120.000 ton capacity in Santa Clara, near Rosario.

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Molecule-resolution microscopy

2009-08-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

Reasearchers from IBM Zurich obtained molecule-resolution images of pentacene. They clearly show the hexagon-like benzene rings. The technique is a modified AFM (atomic force microscopy), where the scanning tip is covered with a single molecule of carbon monoxide. This change causes a slight repulsion between the molecule and the probe, which avoids destroying the molecule being imaged.

Ref: Science 28 August 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5944, pp. 1110 - 1114
DOI: 10.1126/science.1176210

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Your own satellite in orbit for usd 8000

2009-08-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

We found out via Slashdot, that a company called interorbital systems is offering to launch a 1/2 Kg satellite in orbit for a mere 8000 US dollars. The system is called tubesat and each one is a cylindrical container which is filled with the customer's payload of about 200g.

The size and weight is vary small, but enough for the electronics needed for transmission of data to earth and and small experiments to generate such data.

According to the company this scheme would be very useful for many schools and companies that would be interested in launching small satellites but have difficulties finding a spot in current commercial launches.

A related project, with larger payloads are Cubesats. These have been developed since 1999, with some successful launches and some failures. The cubesats had a price tag of around 80000 us dollars, or ten times more than the tubesat.

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Large scale cellulosic ethanol

2009-07-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

According to a recent report, several companies are already producing large scale cellulosic ethanol. The news comes form a recent ethanol workshop attended by representatives of Coskata, Dupont/Danisco, Iogen, Lignol, Poet and PureVision.
the companies process around 1 ton of biomass per day, which is converted into 70-85 gallons of biofuels.

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Cosmetic formulas

2009-07-25T16:17:00.000-07:00

Eckart America has many formulations for personal care products. They include ingredient lists and directions to make:

Eye shadow
Lipstick
Hair gel
Foundation
Skin lotion
Blush
Nail polish

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Free Chemical Engineering Journals

2009-07-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

A user from the forum todoquimica (in spanish) supplied a list of chemical engineering publications that are freely avilable. They can be accessed through DOAJ (Directory of open access journals).

The journal names are listed below:

Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan
Journal of Corrosion Science & Engineering
The Journal of Food Technology in Africa
Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications
Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods
Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society
Journal of the Ceramic Society of Japan
Journal of the Chilean Chemical Sociaty
Journal of the Japan Petroleum Institute
Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society
Polymer Journal
E-polymers
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Quarterly
Platinum Metals Review
Oil and Gas Business
Polímeros
Journal of Water and Environment Technology
Ciência e Tecnologia de Alimentos
Electronic Journal of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Chemistry

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New material harder than diamond

2009-07-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

Researchers from Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Universitat Bayreuth, Germany, created a substance denser and less compressible than diamond. It was obteined by compressing fullerene (c60) molecules at a pressure of 10 GPa and a temperature of 2200 degrees Celsius. Attempts to measure the micro hardness failed, since a diamond indenter was unable to make a dent in the new material. The material however was able to scratch the surface of diamonds. It is beleved that the new material would be more effective than diamond for tools and other industrial uses.

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Photos of industrial plants

2009-07-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

Those who appreciate giant structures, tanks, piping and large abandoned buildings, may like these photographs. The plants are closed, unused or in the process of being teared down. Buildings include sulfuric acid plants, steel furnaces and others.

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Excellent laboratory website

2009-07-25T15:52:00.000-07:00

Chemistry teaching websites are often of poor quality. That's not the case for Chemlab, the website of Darthmouth college's chemistry lab.
Laboratory procedures are clearly explained, as are some topics in chemistry. I highly recommend it to anybody teaching or concerned with the design of a chemistry teaching website.

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Origins of FORTRAN

2009-07-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

I'd like to invite computer programming enthusiasts to view this video about the team that created the first version of the FORTRAN computer language. It's 12 minutes long and consists of interviews with the main protagonists of the story. The interviews reveal how excited they were of working on the (at the time) innovative project.

Even today, Fortran is one of the most widely used languages for numerical and scientific applications.

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Heat engines without moving parts

2009-07-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Whenever something does not have moving parts, engineers get excited. Absence of moving parts means less parts that require lubrication, or can break down, and therefore the system has less maintenance.

Heat engines such as the internal combustion engine, compression refrigeration cycles or steam turbine cycles are widely used, but have great mechanical complexity and require many parts. Is it possible to make heat engines without turbines, pumps, pistons or hydraulic seals?

Yes, one such technology are the so called thermoacoustic engines. They use a compressible gas that vibrates inside a cavity at a resonance frequency. Invented long ago, the first models had poor efficiency, but recent advances achieved increases in efficiency that make them more attractive.

They can operate in direct mode, producing work from a temperature difference, or in reverse mode, as coolers that transfer heat from a cold reservoir to a hot one at the expense of work.

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List of good free math software

2009-07-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

Below is a selection of high quality free math software. Many of them are distributed under a GNU license and work on multiple platforms (Linux, Windows, etc)

Maxima Algebra system with emphasis on symbolic computations.

Octave High level language, mostly oriented to numerical methods. It's fairly compatible with MATLAB. It was created for use in chemical engineering problem solving.

R Statistical and graphics package.It's similar to the "S" system developed at Bell labs (The main author of "S", is part of the development team of "R")

Scilab User friendly numerical package.

Gnuplot Very comprehensive scientific plotting program. Can be used from a command line or via scripts that allow automation of many tasks.

We found the links in GnuWin, a website dedicated to software of the GNU kind.

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Composites for aircraft

2009-07-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

Composite materials are a material of great interest for aircraft. According to Frost & Sullivan, as soon as the materials improve their cost-benefit ratio, they will replace parts currently made of aluminum alloys or steel in civilian and military aircraft.

One of the research trends is adding carbon nanotubes to composites. It is estimated that by 2020 nanotubes will be used widely in aircraft such as the Airbus A380 or Boeing 747.

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Chemistry dissertations in spanish

2009-07-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

Many PhD dissertations with chemistry related topics can be found online at universidad complutense de madrid. They describe procedures, research techniques, etc. Here's a link to another website with links to thesis.

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Formulations for personal care

2009-07-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

ITDF is a supplier of ingredients for cosmetics and household chemicals. Their website has interesting documents regarding regulations for manufacturing cosmetics.

There is also a section with formulations, or recipes to make a large number of ingredients.

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Cost of chemicals

2009-07-25T15:09:00.000-07:00

Market prices of chemicals are useful for economic studies and chemical engineering design projects. This information can be hard to find for students.

To help with these task we found a website from ICIS with prices of a large number of chemicals. Although they might be a bit dated, thay can be useful for student papers or projects.

Another source of estimated prices of chemicals can be found here (prices in UK pounds)

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Laboratory glassware

2009-07-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

Chemical labs use a great variety of glass equipment, including, flasks, burettes, etc. We found a couple links thay may amuse those who spend many hours a day using glassware.

1)The original design of the Erlenmeyer flask.

2) A hybrid between a flask and an erlenmeyer, called fleaker. It combines the conical and cylindrical shapes providing the advantages of both. It might be so, but it also seems that it might be hard to clean if anything happens to stick to the interior walls.

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Cellulosic ethanol process

2009-07-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

One of the multiple process for cellulosic ethanol is the one of bluefire (Arkenol). In their website they show flowsheets and pilot plant schematics.

One of the reasons in producing cellulosic ethanol as a renewable fuel is to use agricultural residues that would otherwise be burned or disposed of as waste.

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Vapor Liquid Equilibrium

2009-07-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

One of the most common separation operations is distillation. Design of distillation columns requires thermodynamic data on vapor liquid equilibrium of the mixture of interest.

Many thermodynamic database exist, some of which are accesible to subscribers only. Some are, however, open to the general public. The best ones are those who provide citations to the original sources, which facilitates evaluating the reliablity of the data.

Today we'd like to point out CHERIC(Chemical Engineering Research Information Center) from Korea. It has vast amounts of data on VLE of binary systems and a database that includes thermophysic properties and equilibrium data for:
2000 hydrocarbons and light gases.
200 polymers and solvents.
2000 electrolyte solutions

Some other sources of thermodynamic data include:

Shuzo One's website.

The COCO package includes thermodynamic data on 150 substances.

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Chemical Engineering design projects

2009-07-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

For those looking for chemical engineering design projects, West Virgina University has many interesting ones in DOC and PDF format.

They can be immediately useful as an example of a design project or for future reference. Topics range form optimizations of existing projects to mnore comprehensive large projects.

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Chemical plant in Star Trek 2009

2009-07-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

Good news for chemical engineering and science fiction fans. The new Star Trek movie (2009), has a very industrial look, and many scenes were filmed in actual plants. More specifically, the engine room of the Enterprise is actually a Budweiser Brewery in which one can clearly see the fermentors and piping.
As an interesting side note, the same plant was previously used as in the 80's Sci-Fi tv show "V".

According to its official site, a power plant was also used as a filming location.
For more on this, please check out the production notes from the official website.

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Free Simulators in Holland

2009-07-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam is a chemical "hotspot", where there are not only multiple industrial plants, but also many research centers. In this environment they are creating free tools which are very useful for process simulation.

Thanks to a post from Roberto Carrera in ingenieria quimica.org, we have found some interesting links.

CoLAN (CAPE-OPEN Laboratories Network) is an organization that promotes the use of open standards for process simulation software. This aims to facilitate the exchange of flowsheets, thermodynamic properties between different programs. Some members of this association include representatives of major companies like Shell, BP, Total, BASF, DOW and IFP.

COCO is a free simulation environment that uses CAPE-OPEN standards. It includes:
*Graphic interfaces for flowsheets.
*Thermodynamic database.
*Unit operations modules.
*Chemical reactor modules.

ChemSep: Free Software for multicomponent separations. It allows the user to calculate distillation columns, thermodynamic properties, etc. The LITE version is free, and there's a paid version with more options.

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Material Physical Properties

2009-07-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

Evitherm's web page contains links to various databases of thermodynamic material properties,and also countless other chemical physical properties that may be of interest. Some of these are free.

For example, one of the databases is the material datacenter that contains information on plastics.

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Homemade supercomputer

2009-07-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Professor Joel Adams and his student, Tim Brom of Calvin College, USA, announced that it is possible to build a high performing supercomputer for a really low price (less than $2500.)

The device is called Microwulf and consists of 4 multi-core processors connected by gigabyte ethernet. These are all elements whose price is always decreasing.

In order to test the performance, they used the
“high performance Linpack” benchmark, which yielded a result of a maximum 26 Gigaflops. (…...The most powerful supercomputer today reaches 280 Teraflops, a number approximately 10,000 times larger. While the proposed system is not the most powerful, in terms of Gflops per dollar or per KW it is very efficient.

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New periodic table

2009-07-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

A new spiral shaped periodic table is the focus of some controversy. Allegedly it gives a clearer picture of the relationships among elements. On the other hand, it doesn't provide as much information as the classic chemical tables.

As for me I'll stick with Sargent Welch's, because it has atomic weights, etc.

Also note: Why do so many people create computer-based periodic tables? Paper ones are more useful.

In this link there are various PDF or GIF files for printing your own periodic table.
Also, there is a file in SVG format for those who would like to edit or personalize theirs.

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Candy Manufacturing

2009-07-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Ferrara Pan candy factory offers a Virtual Tour, which shows different stages of the
manufacturing process of making hard candy known as "atomic fireballs." A series of
animated images shows the processing steps that go from raw materials to product packaging. It's not quite the same as a visit to the plant, but it really gives a feeling of what the industrial process looks like.

Hopefully other factories will do the same thing, to satisfy everyone curious about how things are made.

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Google Scholar Scientific search engine

2009-07-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Google Scholar , allows one to find scientific articles on the web.

One of its advantages is the speed and effectiveness that we have come to expect from Google. The results are listed by their relevance, giving priority to the most-cited articles, and at the same time awarding a greater score to the articles cited by those most cited.

One disadvantage is that many publications are not accessible full-text because they require a subscription. It's unlikely that it'll replace academic databases but it is nevertheless an interesting service that's free, and available to everyone.

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Chemistry images

2009-07-14T23:42:00.000-07:00

Good chemistry pictures can be found in wikimedia commons; Below are some chemistry and nanochemistry links:
a. Nanotechnology
b. Laboratory equipment
c. Chemistry
d. Chromatography
Most of the images have a GNU or Creative Commons license, which makes it easy to use or copy the pictures.

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Free Chemical Engineering E-Books

2009-07-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

In NAP's website, (National Academy Press), there are free electronic books (e-books), some of which are chemical engineering-related. (To find them, search for CHEMICAL ENGINEERING) in the search engine. Other topics of interest are nanotechnology, new materials, etc.

Most of these books focus on science policy as well as defense.

Another source of books is Knovel, including Perry's Handbook and many other classics. It is fee-based but it is possible to download the PDF's by registering for a sample subscription.

The Internet Archive has an old chemical engineering manual. This is in DejaVu format and requires downloading a plugin.
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Timeglider screenshots

2009-05-21T10:40:00.001-07:00

Click images to zoom.

Timeglider is a flash-based web tool used to create timelines. The creators suggest it can be useful for teaching, research or project planning. Unfortunately very few screeshots are available, so I show a couple of them here.
It's fairly easy to use.
Surprisingly it lacks some features one would expect such as image resizing or the possiblilty of moving events using the mouse.

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Nanofluids improve fuel efficiency

2008-10-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

The so-called nanofluids are suspensions of particles a few nanometers in size, made of highly conducting materials. These fluids have good heat transfer properties.

According to a recent study by W. Yu at Argonne National Laboratory, smaller radiators are needed in vehicles that incorporate nanofluids. Vehicles with a smaller radiator can be made more aerodynamic. Fuel savings of more than 2.5 percent are projected.

Clic here for a presentation with details about these findings.

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Handbook of Green Chemistry and Technology

2008-10-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Handbook of Green Chemistry and Technology is available on Google books.

It has examples of sustainable processes and methods to reduce their environmental impact.

An issue of interest for the agricultural sector is the production of agrichemicals without using fossil fuels. Substances such as glyphosate herbicide can be produced via a purely biochemical route.

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Chemical equipment cost estimation

2008-10-14T22:10:00.000-07:00

This PDF document has tables and plots for cost estimation of chemical equipment including:

*Vessels
*Tanks
*Columns
*Heat exchangers
*Boilers
*Evaporators
*Mills
*Dryers
*Centrifugues
*Filters
*Mixers
*Pumps
*Compressors
*Turbines

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Impact of Wall Street crisis on the chemical industry

2008-10-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

The recent financial crisis is expected to impact the chemical industry. According to a report in Chemical and Engineering News, the scarcity of credit will not have a direct impact on chemical producers, since according to chemical stock analyst Dmitry Silverstyn, "they have strong free cash flow and relatively low debt and can ride out a short-term credit crunch."

Consumers of chemicals, on the other hand, may be forced to reduce their inventories or default on payments.

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New mirror for Helium scattering microscope

2008-10-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

A Spanish research group has developed a material that would facilitate the construction of better microscopes based on Helium atom scattering. While Helium scattering has been known since the 1930's, the new material can be used to build a a mirror that reflects the atoms with a higher efficiency than previously possible.

Reference: Advanced Materials 20, 3492 (2008), Author(s): D. Barredo, F. Calleja, P. Nieto, J.J. Hinarejos, G. Laurent, A.L. Vázquez de Parga, D. Farías and R. Miranda

Photo: STM image shows the absence of step defects in the new material at various temperatures. Images are 500nm x 500nm.

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New process for rubber feedstock via fermentation

2008-09-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

According to a new report, Goodyear and Genencor are collaborating to develop a process for isoprene through fermentation. Isoprene is a molecule used in the manufacture of synthetic rubber. This process uses renewable materials and would allow the production of synthetic rubber without using petroleum-based feedstocks.

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Graphene ultracapacitors

2008-09-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ultracapacitors and supercapacitors are elements that can store electrical charge, and it is expected that they will be useful in many applications, including electric cars. Supercapacitors, unlike batteries, can store or deliver electric charge very quickly.

An article about graphene ultracapacitors is available as a PDF file from Rodney Ruoff's research group website at the University of Texas at Austin.

Graphene has the same hexagonal structure as graphite sheets. Because of its high conductivity and specific surface area, the material is very promising for electrical applications.

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AIChE book from 1921

2008-09-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Google books has an interesting volume from the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE) published in 1921.
Part of the book's appeal comes from the style used to describe machinery and working details of many industries.

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First martian soil data announced

2008-09-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

NASA announced the first results of the chemical analysis sent from the Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft. Surprisingly, one of the substances detected may be perchlorates. Some possible implications of the discovery of these substances is that the Martian soil may be too toxic to support life. Another possibility is that the oxidizing material could be used to make rocket fuel that may be useful for future expeditions.

While further research is necessary to confirm the findings, the discovery is a surprising development.

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