Chemical Engineering February 2022 - 9

tomatically responds to
changing
temperatures
by switching between
heating and cooling.
The self-adaptive glass
is developed using layers
of vanadium dioxide
nanoparticles composite,
poly(methyl methacrylate),
and a low-emissivity
coating to form a unique
structure that could modulate
heating and cooling
simultaneously. The
newly developed glass,
which has no electrical
components, works by
exploiting the spectrums
of light responsible for
heating and cooling. During
summer,
the
glass
suppresses solar heating
(near infrared (NIR) light),
while boosting radiative
cooling (long-wavelength
IR) to cool the room. In the
winter, it does the opposite
to warm up the room.
CYBERSECURITY
In January, the International
Society of Automation
(ISA; Research Triangle
Park, N.C.; www.isa.
org) and the ISA Global
Cybersecurity
Alliance
(www.isa.org/isagca),
with contributing author
Gary Rathwell, released a
new white paper entitled,
" Implementing an Industrial
Cybersecurity Program
for Your Enterprise. "
The ISA/IEC 62443
standard provides powerful
tools to reduce the
risk of financial, reputational,
human and environmental
impact from
cyber-attacks on industrial
automation and control
systems (IACS). Any
specific company is likely
to find that while most of
the standard applies to
their IACS, parts of it may
not. It is therefore recommended
that each company
establishes their
own IACS Cybersecurity
Program to manage cybersecurity
risks, and
ISA/IEC 62443 2-1 provides
guidance on how to
establish such a security
program for IACS asset
owners. This whitepaper
provides the guidance on
how to do this.
❐
Demonstration plant will convert waste biomass
into emissions-free hydrogen
A
new demonstration plant near Bakersfield,
Calif. will produce carbonnegative
" green " H2 from woody
biomass waste, such as agricultural
residues from orchard trees and walnut
shells. Developed by Mote, Inc. (Los
Angeles, Calif.; www.motehydrogen.com),
with engineering partners Fluor Corp. (Irving,
Tex.; www.fluor.com) and SunGas Renewables
(Houston;
www.sungasrenewables.
com), the plant will be designed for 7,000
metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of H2 production,
alongside 150,000 m.t./yr of carbon
capture and storage (CCS) capacity, with
startup expected by 2024.
" The plant is demonstrating the first-ever
system integration of biomass gasification,
CO2 geologic storage, a syngas water-gas
shift (WGS) reaction and H2 purification.
" Using waste biomass as our feedstock
gives us an incredible value stream of taking
CO2 out of the air and producing clean
H2 for the transportation market at the same
time, " explains Joshuah Stolaroff, Mote cofounder
and chief technology officer.
Adapting the principles of coal gasification
for biomass, the process gasifier acts as a
pressurized, fluidized bed that is oxygenfired,
wherein woodchips are converted to
a synthesis gas (syngas) stream consisting
of mainly CO and H2 - unlike in coal
gasification, there is little sulfur or N2 to deal
with. " When we get the syngas that comes
out of the gasifier, we purify it for the subsequent
WGS reaction. There, we react the
CO with water to make more H2 and CO2.
That is one approach that sets us apart from
other biomass gasification projects that have
been proposed, " adds Stolaroff. Several H2purification
steps follow to separate the CO2
and to remove particulate and tar impurities
before the H2 is compressed to 700 bars for
transportation. The CCS portion of the process
will employ Fluor's proprietary system
based on a propylene carbonate solvent. According
to Stolaroff, the demonstration plant
is one-third the scale of Mote's proposed
full-scale plant. In the future, the company
is planning to fine-tune the WGS catalyst for
specific biomass compositions and evaluate
other CCS schemes, including cryogenic
and membrane-based technologies.
This new thermoplastic elastomer has a large
impact resistance
T
hermoplastic elastomers
(TPEs) are typically copolymers
of a plastic and
a rubber that have both
thermoplastic and elastomeric
properties. The best-known
TPEs include styrenic block
polymers, which contain molecular blocks
of polystyrene (which is hard) and polydiene
(which is rubbery). Two important examples
are polystyrene-b-polyisoprene-b-polystyrene
(SIS) and polystyrene-b-polybutadieneb-polystyrene
(SBS).
To improve the mechanical properties of
styrenic block polymers, researchers from
Nagoya University (www.en.nagoya-u.ac.jp)
and the Zeon Corp. (Tokyo, both Japan;
www.zeon.co.jp) have developed an industry-friendly
synthesis of chemically modified
SIS, such as hydrogen-bonded SIS (h-SIS)
and ionically functionalized SIS (i-SIS), which
is SIS with positive ions such as sodium
bonded in it (diagram). These results were
reported last March in Science Direct. Since
then, the partners have recently reported, in
ACS Omega, the first study to evaluate the
impact resistance of the new elastomeric
materials based on i-SIS, and compare them
to the impact resistance of a typical highstrength
material based on glass-fiber-reinCHEMICAL
ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
FEBRUARY 2022
Astuchi Noro/Nagoya University
forced plastic (GFRP), which has a tensile
strength of 330 MPa. Drop-weight impact
tests demonstrated that i-SIS with monovalent
or divalent cations is 3 to 4 times more
impact resistant than chemically unmodified
SIS. Moreover, i-SIS with divalent cations is
found to be 1.2 times more impact resistant
than typical high-strength GFRP. In summary,
i-SIS, especially with divalent ions, was
found to be highly impact resistant, even
though inorganic fillers (hardening additives)
are not incorporated into the polymer and
the molecular structure of the polymer is not
chemically cross-linked.
These properties give the new material a
great potential to become a next-generation
elastomeric material for use not only in interior
and exterior automobile parts, but also
for automobile bodies, and even the outer
panels of automobiles, trains and other vehicles
that require light-weight structural materials
with high impact resistance, as well as
ease of manufacture.
n
9
http://www.motehydrogen.com http://www.fluor.com http://www.sungasrenewables.com http://www.isa.org http://www.isa.org/isagca https://en.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ http://www.zeon.co.jp http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering February 2022
