Chemical Engineering October 2014 - 14

ChementatoR
titanium leaching (Continued from p. 11)
The company says a key feature of its
patented process is the acid recovery and
regeneration process, which shows the
potential to operate at significantly lower
costs than established technologies previously
evaluated by Reed.
Reed will now start a pre-feasibility
study of a hard-rock titanium mining and
processing operation, to be completed in
the first quarter of 2015. The study estimated
average net operating costs of
TiO2 recovered at $1,214/m.t. with an
indicative accuracy of ±35%, potentially
placing the project at the low end of the
global cost curve.
It is expected that run-of-mine ore
will be crushed and screened at the
mine site and then trucked to a processing
facility near Geraldton, Western
Ausralia, with a nominal capacity
of 200,000 m.t./yr of feed, where highpurity
titanium, vanadium and iron
compounds will be produced.
This solar cell promises to be less expensive
A
commercial prototype perovskite solar
cell that is less expensive than current
thin-film solar cells is under development
by a team from Nanyang Technological
University (Singapore; www.ntu.edu.sg),
in collaboration with Dyesol Ltd. (Queanbeyan,
NSW, Australia; www.dyesol.com)
and professor Michael Grätzel from the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(Lausanne; www.epfl.ch).
The team has produced solar cells made
from perovskite materials using a simple
solution-based manufacturing process.
It studied organic-inorganic halide perovskite
materials, such as CH3NH3PbI3,
as light harvesters in solid-state sensitized
solar cells. Perovskite can convert
up to 15% of sunlight to electricity, close
to the 20% efficiency of commercial thin(Continues
on p. 16)
New HTS catalyst
last month, Clariant (muttenz,
Switzerland; www.clariant.com)
introduced Shiftmax 120 hCF,
an enhanced high-temperature
shift (hTS) catalyst that contains
essentially no (less than 200
parts per million) hexavalent
chromium (Cr+6). That means
the catalyst avoids health and
safety risks during handling and
commissioning at hydrogen and
ammonia-production plants.
The low Cr+6 was independently
confirmed by Seibersdorf laboratories
(according to oeCD
test no. 29). Shiftmax 120 hCF
is thus fully compliant with
reaCh regulations of the european
Community (annex XiV
to eC no 1907/2006), which will
inhibit the sale of compounds
containing Cr+6 beyond a very
low threshold.
The new Shiftmax 120 hCF is
practically identical to its predecessor
(Shiftmax 120) after initial
activation, says the company.
Shiftmax 120 hCF has already
been successfully installed in
several h2 plants.
Dry bulk material handling
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 Dense and dilute phase and vacuum pressure
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 Reliable automated operation and control, for
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With over 30 years of industry experience, Nol-Tec
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http://www.clariant.com http://www.ntu.edu.sg http://www.dyesol.com http://www.epfl.ch http://www.nol-tec.com http://adlinks.che.com/50981-20
Chemical Engineering October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering October 2014
