Solid waste is generated at a rate of more than 4 lb per person per day. A significant portion of the non-recyclable waste is food waste, with high water content and low energy density. While most thermochemical conversion processes require a relatively dry feedstock, hydrothermal liquefaction uses subcritical water as the reaction medium and is therefore compatible with high-moisture feedstock...

Practically all of life's molecular processes, from chemical synthesis to replication, involve enzymes that carry out their functions through the catalytic transformation of metastable fuels into waste products. Catalytic control of reaction rates will prove to be as useful and ubiquitous in nucleic-acid-based engineering as it is in biology. Here we report a metastable DNA "fuel" and a corresp...

This study explores the potential of titanium oxide impregnated on calcium oxide (CaO-TiO2) as catalyst in transesterification of vegetable palm oil (VPO) to produce biodiesel. The biodiesel yield increased with catalyst calcination temperature and reaction time, and the usage of CaO-TiO2 led to higher biodiesel production when compared to reaction catalyzed by CaO. Biodiesel yield of 93.33% wa...

the utilization of hydroxy sodalite (h-sod) as catalyst under solvent-free condition is described for the efficient preparation of tetrahydrobenzo[b]pyrans. these compounds are synthesized by three-component reactions of aldehydes, alkylnitriles and dimedone. h-sod that is the waste-product of zeolite manufacturing process is used as an efficient and a very inexpensive catalyst. furthermore, it...

The current study was intended to investigate the catalytic destruction of iron oxide in chlorobenzene and model dioxin compounds combustion. First, chlorobenzene was used to correlate dioxin formation with chloro content of chlorobenzene. Further, the regenerated ferric oxide catalyst was used at different combustion temperatures to evaluate its impact on dioxin formation. Finally, a reference...

Treatment of industrial waste water (e.g. textile waste water, phenol waste water, pharmaceutical etc) faces limitation in conventional treatment procedures. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) do not suffer from the limits of conventional treatment processes and consequently degrade toxic pollutants more efficiently. Complexity is faced in eradicating the restrictions of AOPs such as sludge fo...

Initial results are presented for the production of hydrogen from waste lubricating oil using a chemical looping reforming (CLR) process. The development of flexible and sustainable sources of hydrogen will be required to facilitate a ‘hydrogen economy’. The novel CLR process presented in this paper has an advantage over hydrogen production from conventional steam reforming because CLR can use ...