Chemical Engineering January 2018 - 8

tists, an application of the new
findings is not limited to silicon
solar cells, but also applicable
to other technologies, where
reflection losses occur.
DIRECT FtoC MOLDING
Adeka Corp. (www.adeka.
co.jp) and GH Craft Ltd., the
composite structure design,
development and evaluation
business unit of Teijin Group
(both Tokyo, Japan; www.
teijin.com), have jointly developed
the world's first fiberto-composite
(FtoC) molding
process to laminate fiber-reinforced
plastics (FRP) in open
molds. The FtoC molding process
automates resin impregnating,
curing and laminating
processes while aligning highly
oriented fibers. A new, rapidcuring
epoxy resin developed
by Adeka enables FRP to be
cured in just tens of seconds
with GH Craft's new molding
process using infrared radiation.
Large-scale equipment,
such as curing ovens and
press molds, are not needed
because the FRP can be laminated
in an open mold.
By extending and highly orienting
fibers, the process produces
glass-fiber-reinforced
plastics (GFRP) that offer
significantly improved performance,
including 100% more
bending strength, 40% more
tensile strength and 75% more
interlayer shear strength compared
to conventional GRFP
made with conventional resintransfer
molding, says Teijin.
MOLTEN Na MAKES NH3
Fumio Kawamura and coworkers
at the National Institute for
Materials Science (NIMS; Tsukuba
City,Japan; www.nims.
go.jp/high-pressure) have
discovered that molten sodium
can be used as a new
catalyst for making ammonia.
The scientists simply bubble a
mixture of 4 vol.% H2 and 96
vol.% N2 at atmospheric pressure
through molten sodium at
500-590°C in a quartz reactor
tube. Under these conditions,
N2 molecules dissociate and
react with H2 to form NH3.
However, because the yield is
only 0.1% so far, it will be a while
before the technology replaces
the century old, energy-intensive
Haber-Bosch process.❏
8
Enhancing the stability of perovskite solar cells
P
erovskite solar cells have attracted
much interest in the past few years
as the next-generation solar cells
capable of surpassing silicon cells'
efficiency. However, because the perovskite
materials are easily decomposed in moist
conditions, they must be properly encapsulated,
which results in low stability.
To overcome those limitations and speed
up the commercialization of perovskite solar
cells, professor Jin Young Kim from the
School of Energy and Chemical Engineering
at Ulsan National Institute of Science and
Technology (UNIST,
Ulsan, South Korea;
www.unist.ac.kr) and associates from
Wonkwang University (Iksan) and the Korea
Institute of Energy Research (KIER; Ulsan,
both South Korea) have used fluorine-functionalized
graphene nanoplatelets (EFGnPsF)
with a p-i-n structure of perovskite solar
cells to fully cover the perovskite active layer
Testing tide power
A
S
counter-rotating propeller technology
that is being developed to harness
the energy from tidal currents
has been field tested off the coast
of Nagasaki Bay, near Iwo Jima, Japan. The
prototype, which is one seventh the size of a
commercial unit, has a rated power of 500
kW and was shown to have a 43.1% power
generation efficiency for a water flowrate of
4 m/s, which exceeded the estimates (42%)
based on the design. The device was developed
by a Japanese industry-academiagovernment
collaboration, led by Kyowa
Engineering Consultants Co. (Tokyo) and the
New Energy and Industrial Technology Development
Organization (NEDO; Kawasaki;
www.nedo.go.jp), with partners EIM Electric
Co., Maeda Corp. Kyushu Institute of Technology
and Waseda University. The unit has
two 5-m-dia. propellers that rotate in opposite
directions when water flows through.
The design has the advantages that not
only the output is sufficiently higher without
supplementary equipment (such as a gearbox),
but also the rotational moment hardly
affects the support structure because the rotational
torque of both propellers/armatures
are counter-balanced in the unit.
The tests were conducted by towing the
device by a ship, but ultimately stationary
(floating) devices can utilize the ocean currents
to generate next-generation electricity.
A promising zeolite for ethylene separation
cientists from ExxonMobil (Irving,
Tex.; www.exxonmobil.com) and
the Institute of Chemical Technology
(ITQ; Valencia, Spain; http://itq.
upv-csic.es) have discovered a new material
that could significantly reduce the amount
of energy and emissions associated with
the production of ethylene. Depending on
the application, use of the new material, in
conjunction with other novel separation processes,
could result in up to a 25% reduction
in both the energy needed to separate ethylene
from ethane, as well as the associated
CO2 emissions. Results of the research have
been published in a recent issue of Science.
The patented new material, ITQ-55, is a
silica zeolite that can selectively adsorb ethylene
over ethane as a result of its unique
flexible pore structure. Built from heartshaped
cages interconnected by flexible
elongated pore openings, the material allows
the diffusion of the flatter ethylene molecules
as opposed to the more cylindrical-shaped
ethane molecules. The new material acts as
a flexible molecular sieve, and has an unprecedented
degree of selectivity at ambient
temperature, says ExxonMobil.
Although more work is required before the
new technology can be applied industrially,
it could become an economically superior
alternative to conventional cryogenic distillation,
when further developed.
n
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
JANUARY 2018
and protect against water ingress. The cells
achieved 82% stability relative to initial performance
over 30 days of air exposure without
encapsulation.
The
enhanced
stability
resulted
from
fluorine-substitution on EFGnPs. " By substituting
carbon for fluorine, we have created
a two-dimensional material with high
hydrophobicity, like Teflon, and then applied
it to perovskite solar cells, " says a member
of the research team, professor Gwi-Hwan
Kim at UNIST.
The newly-developed perovskite solar
cell device was fabricated using a solution
process, in which the perovskite material is
coated onto on a flexible film. This process
will allow applying solar cells to wearable
devices. A simple manufacturing process
and a low manufacturing cost distinguishes
the new devices from existing silicon-based
inorganic electronic devices.
http://www.adeka http://www.co.jp http://www.teijin.com http://www.unist.ac.kr http://www.nedo.go.jp http://www.nims http://www.go.jp/high-pressure http://www.exxonmobil.com http://itq http://www.upv-csic.es http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering January 2018

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