There’s no use crying over spilt milk, as the saying goes, but researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Germany might have solved the problem of spilt milk when having your coffee. The researchers have developed a milk capsule that dissolves when placed in a hot drink. Not only does this reduce the consumption of packaging material, the capsules are easier to use than conventional plastic containers. The research group published its findings in the journal ...

Today's professional chemical engineers accept responsibility for avoiding or abating pollution of the environment by the process industries. But the profession, of which I am proud to be a part, should play a more fundamental role in sustainability. We need a complete rethink of the way we manage and use resources, including energy and land, as well as materials. Chemical engineering must contribute to this change as a way of thinking, not just as a technological discipline. We can see ...

The Oxford Electric Bell has been ringing constantly for over 175 years – so much so, that the apparatus has been dubbed the world’s most durable battery. But after all this time, it is still a scientific mystery how the bell has functioned for so long. For operators of thermal fluid systems, keeping operations running does not have to be a mystery. In chemical processes that require indirect heat, there are two methods that dominate the industry — steam and thermal fluids. To achieve ...

The water on Earth might have originally been formed by chemical reactions deep within the planet’s mantle, according to research led by University College Dublin engineers. The new theory offers an alternative explanation as to how the life-giving liquid may have originated on Earth. Previously, scientists have suggested that comets that collided with the planet could have deposited large amounts of ice on Earth which later melted, forming water. The investigators carried out computer ...

When organic chemists identify a useful chemical compound — a new drug, for instance — it is up to chemical engineers to determine how to mass-produce it. There could be 100 different sequences of reactions that yield the same end product. But some of them use cheaper reagents and lower temperatures than others, and perhaps most importantly, some are much easier to run continuously, with technicians occasionally topping up reagents in different reaction chambers. Historically, ...

When it comes to removing very dilute concentrations of pollutants from water, existing separation methods tend to be energy- and chemical-intensive. Now, a new method developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could provide a selective alternative for removing even extremely low levels of unwanted compounds. The new approach is described in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, in a paper by MIT postdoc Xiao Su, Ralph Landau Professor of Chemical Engineering T. Alan ...