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Interview – Analytical Instrumentation: An Epitome of Digitalization in the Chemical Industry

Chemical Industry Digest
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The global chemical industry has seen a surge in the deployment of latest instrumentation in conventional and state-of-the-art processes. Leveraging digitalization has become a vital need of the industry to improve operational efficiency and reduce personnel errors. The current trend of sophisticated software and uncomplicated interface with portable instrumentation has revolutionized the integration of analytical techniques in laboratories and chemical plants.

Several industries including the chemicals, life sciences, petroleum, and so on are major consumers of instrumentation in the B2B segment.

To understand the advances in Analytical Instrumentation and its deployment in the industry since its advent, Chemical Industry Digest had an email interaction with Upendra Dixit- Managing Director of AJ Instruments India Pvt. Ltd.

 His views are published here.

 Chemical Industry Digest (CID) Q.1- What are some of the phenomenal advances in Analytical instrumentation (AI) over the last decade that have impacted conventional techniques like chromatography, spectroscopy, etc. to entirely new path-breaking technologies including miniaturization of hardware and the benefits?  And what additional benefits do these advances offer to user industries?
Upendra Dixit (UD): Miniaturization is perhaps the most notable current trend in analytical chemistry. Rapid developments in instrumentation have led to an impressive range of benchtop technology and portable devices. The range of portable analytical instruments includes spectroscopic analysis, and elemental analysis are expected to experience the highest growth in a wide range of applications requiring high precision, including drug testing, environmental testing and the analysis of food and beverages.

Associated developments to miniaturization are the combination with internet enabling technologies for online analysis of process parameters. Online techniques provide benefits of continuous process control and provides benefits of speed and cost to process analytical chemistry.

The next advancement is the improvements in analytical technology, which are high-throughput methods for faster and efficient analysis.  Development of Fourier Transform methods in both nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy, and hyphenated techniques such as mass spectrometry (MS) are good examples.  These developments have provided the user with more powerful techniques to investigate the nature and behavior of compounds.

The advances now focus on the sustainable aspects of the field towards green analytical instrumentation. The focus is on the minimized consumption of hazardous substances and maximized safety for operators and the environment.

CID Q.2- How are user industries responding to incorporating the latest techniques? What about the human resource dimension in terms of skilled people to operate such latest equipment and also for the people to understand the new techniques? What about the training required to skill such people? What would you like to suggest or advise user industries for the satisfactory deployment of AI?
UD: Latest industry solutions/techniques increase efficiency in industrial laboratories and benefit many labs in the food, agricultural, oil refinery, chemical, and environmental industries.
As we know generic skills are very important, but in addition to these skills with chemical instrumentation and analytical techniques are also vital for people to understand the new techniques. For this, students need to have access to new analytical instruments at University level and should work or Intern in R&D or QC Lab in any industry.
Industries need to understand the benefits of latest techniques to increase the quality and speed of production. Analysis time has been reduced from several hours or days to even minutes.
Improvement in accuracy of results by elimination of errors introduced due to personal bias.
Improvement in sensitivity leading to trace analysis at ppt or even femto- mole levels. Such sensitivities could not be imagined using the conventional classical approach.
Fast decisions in case of online analysis during manufacturing operations or deciding on viability before taking commercial decisions.

CID Q.3- With the repertoire of a suite of AI techniques available is it possible to specify which technique is best for which function? Like say, which one for impurity profiling, or elemental analysis or for separation of complex natural substances, etc. how does one select the appropriate AI technique?
UD: The selection of appropriate Analytical Instrument Technique is based on the interest of compound or element and concentration of the analyte.  The spectroscopy, chromatography and IR detection techniques are highly suitable to estimate impurity profiles with more reliability.  While choosing a method, consideration is given to some or all the following design criteria like accuracy, sensitivity, selectivity, precision, robustness, scale of operation, analysis time and cost.   Each of these criteria is considered in detail while selecting the technique.

CID Q.4- With more functional areas and applications coming under the realm of AI, very broadly how can we classify the AI techniques application-wise such as for analysis, separations, material characterization…what else? And in what all industry areas does AI play a very crucial role; is it in R&D, in QC, in Environment and Safety, etc? And in which industry is it widely employed, is it in Life Sciences, Drugs & Pharma, where else?
UD: AI techniques could be broadly classified into 3 categories – sample preparation, element and chemical separation, analysis and measurement.
The high performance analysis instruments are used whenever precision and reliability are required. Whether it is water analysis, environmental monitoring, health care, or quality control, analytical devices guarantee that strict standards have been maintained. AI techniques or solutions are selected as per the individual needs of our customers and their fields of application.
The functional area and applications of the analytical instruments technique have a wide and extensive coverage area of many industries.  AI plays vital role in industries such as Research & Development, Government & Regulatory, Pharma & Healthcare, Food/Agriculture/Soil Science, Oil/Gas/Petrochemical, Materials & Chemicals, Environment & Pollution, Metals/Minerals/Geology/Mining, and Private Test Labs.

CID Q.5- What major product areas/ techniques are offered by AJ? What are your major areas of expertise? What is unique about you over the competition (USP)? Do you manufacture your entire product profile locally or are you also importing? Which industries do you serve majorly? What is your association with your parent company AnalytikJena AG? What is the support they provide you?
UD: Analytik Jena India is a leading provider of high-end analytical measuring technology of spectroscopy and sum parameters instruments and products in the fields of biotechnology and molecular diagnostics, as well as of high quality liquid handling and automation technologies. Our portfolio includes traditional analytical technology, particularly to measure concentrations of elements and molecules, as well as systems for bioanalytical applications in the Life Science area spanning the highly complex analytic cycle of a sample from sample preparation to detection.

All our analytical instruments are manufactured at Germany. Our instruments are used in Research & Development, Quality control, life science, drugs and pharmaceutical, Environment and safety, Oil & gas, Metals & Mining, Food & Healthcare, Agriculture, chemicals and purification plants, Cosmetics and personal care and Institutions.
AJ Instruments India Pvt. Ltd is a 100% subsidiary company of AnalytikJena AG.  We provide support for analytical method & application development, technical support & training, periodic update on product & technology development, etc.  Analytik Jena is part of the Swiss Endress+Hauser Group. Below is the detailed portfolio of Analytik Jena-

ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTATION
Atomic Absorption Spectrometry- contrAA series, novAA series | Optical Emission Spectroscopy ICP-OES | Mass Spectroscopy ICP-MS | Mercury Analysis | Sample Preparation | UV/Vis Spectrophotometers-Specord PLUS | TOC/TNb | AOX/TOX/EOX | Elemental Analysis C/N/S/Cl | Water Determination by Karl Fischer | Accessories

LIFE SCIENCE
Mixing & Homogenization | Automized Extraction | Spectrophotometer | Liquid Handling | Thermal Cycler & Real-Time Thermal Cycler | Electrophoresis & Blotting | Gel Documentation | Biomolecular Interaction Analysis | General Lab/Laboratory Equipment | Manual Nucleic Acid Isolation | Nucleic Acid Extraction Using a Homogenizer | Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction | PCR | External Control of Extraction | Kits for Molecular Diagnostics | Mobile Diagnostics

Analytik Jena focuses on the following key differentiators against our competitors:

  • Industry leading analytical performance to guarantee sanctity of results in QC and breakthrough developments in R&D
  • User interface that best optimizes ease of use, cost of ownership and measurement throughput
  • Quality and reliability with industry leading warranty standards. For example, Analytik Jena uniquely provides 10 year warranties on optics and other such components.
  • Consultative and Expertise focused approach to customer engagement to allow for best solution match to customer applications and environment


Interviewee’s Details:
Upendra Dixit (Managing Director- AJ Instruments India Pvt. Ltd.) is a senior management professional in the instrumentation industry and currently leads the Indian Region subsidiary operations of Analytik Jena AG of Germany. He has 15+ years’ experience of global leadership in industry leading multinational corporations. He has over 25 years of a successful and progressively growing global career in the instrumentation industry ecosystem spanning R&D, applications/systems support, marketing, business development and sales. He is educationally qualified with an MBA in International Business Management/Marketing and undergraduate degrees in physics and electronics engineering from IIT, Kharagpur and Indian Institute of Science respectively.

Jetty Pipelines Inspection by PEC Technology

Swanand Hatimkar
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Over a span of a century, Cargo Ships have been trading crude oil across the globe. Often the crude oil tankers are loaded and discharge through Jetty Pipelines which are connected to shore facilities.
These Jetty Lines operate in a saline environment and thus are prone to corrosion, may it be internal or external.

Jetty pipelines are comparatively very short than those of cross country crude oil lines and hence are non-piggable. Also, the elbows and Splash zone coating over the pipeline makes inspection with traditional in-line inspection tools a real tough challenge to asset owners.

So how we really monitor these Jetty Pipelines without even removing the Splash Zone coating?
Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) is the technology to address your real-time inspection challenges!

 

What is Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC)?
Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) is an electromagnetic inspection technique used to detect wall loss on ferromagnetic structures such as carbon steel and cast iron. It provides a relative volumetric measurement converted into an averaged thickness measurement based on the calibration area.

 

Advantages of Jetty Pipelines Inspection by PEC Technology :

  1. It is not required to remove splash zone coating or marine growth above the cladding, thus eliminating the cost of re-coating.
  2. PEC inspection is not affected by the flow of fluids within Jetty Pipelines, thus eliminating the shutdown factor i.e. In-service inspection is easily possible.
  3. It can inspect the parent pipeline with 250mm thick insulation coating/splash zone coating.
  4. PEC can be applied at high temperatures up to 550°C of metal under insulation.
  5. Measurement accuracy of ±10% of measured wall thickness.
  6. Strong waves and sea currents do not de-stabilize readings and it is easy to maintain a steady probe contact during inspection data recording
  7. No surface preparation required.
  8. Battery-powered instrument, thus perfect for remote locations.
  9. PEC is one of the fastest screening techniques available for monitoring Corrosion under Splash Zone / Insulation coat in-service condition.

 

Standards guiding PEC Inspection : ISO 20669

Chemingineering | Automation Culture

K. Sahasranaman (Independent Industry Consultant)
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Chemingineering | Automation Culture

Amidst the growing culture of automation, our columnist plays Devil’s Advocate by drawing upon his personal experiences from the last 4 decades. While AI and automation will improve efficiency, the same cannot be said unequivocally about safety. People are at the centre of process safety and human oversight should not be done away with.

As the pandemic continues to persist, businesses that are on the right side of the digital divide are appearing to be doing better. This is hastening the adoption of automation in many businesses and industries. There is a growing narrative that automation will improve safety. I wish to offer a counter-narrative by digging deep into my diaries.

Ear to Pipe
It was the summer of 1982. I can vividly recall my first plant startup. The plant was in Punjab, located right in the middle of ripening wheat-fields, not too far from the country’s then biggest hydroelectric power project. One of the many process steps in the plant involved bubbling carbon dioxide through 4 reactors arranged in parallel. The gas had to be more or less evenly distributed among the 4 reactors and there were no flowmeters. The one-man process licensor was a wizened gentleman, probably in his 70s. I was amused to watch him put his ear to the distribution pipes and adjust the valves. But it worked perfectly! There was no control room in the way we understand now and I spent all of my time in the plant, observing – watching, listening, touching – through my senses.

Graveyard Shift
Fast-forwarding 5 years, Single Loop Controllers and chart recorders were the rage in the industry. It was my second plant startup and I was supervising the night shift. The steam to hydrocarbon ratio was the most critical parameter in the steam reforming process. Sometime between 2 and 3 in the morning, when the alertness level is the lowest, a gasket in the steam line gave away. As the steam leak increased over the next few minutes, the flow meter located upstream of the leak sensed the rise in flow and started closing the control valve. As the leak continued to increase, the control valve went fully shut cutting off steam to the process. The chart recorder in the control room showed a perfectly healthy straight line. But all the steam that was being measured was leaking out and not entering the process. If only the field operator had been alert enough in the dead of the night! The carbon deposition over the catalyst was brutal. The coke had to be drilled out of the reformer tubes.

Alarm Overload
Fast-forward another 5 years. It was the age of DCS. The PSU client was setting up a plant whose technology they were not familiar with. We had a very comprehensive Hazop Study spread over a month at 2 different locations. It was a large team, consisting of as many
as a dozen specialists from the client’s side. There were numerous recommendations; many of them pertained to adding alarms. An additional alarm tag did not add to the project cost as it was on DCS. 18 months later, after the plant had been successfully started up, the client urgently summoned me to the plant. Too many alarms were buzzing and distracting the operator. Over that week, we reviewed each and every alarm and downgraded many of them, even eliminating a few. Such “alarm rationalization” studies have now become the norm in the industry.

Ghost in the Machine
Let me now leap into the first decade of the new millennium. We were controlling an important sequence through a tried and tested logic. The logic had been perfected over one full decade in several plants. It was also comprehensively tested in a FAT at the vendor’s
works. But yet, the unthinkable happened one day. It malfunctioned n an entirely inexplicable way. There was a mysterious ghost inside the software. It caused considerable
downtime. It also rocked my faith in automation.

Safety Culture
In March 2005, an explosion in the BP Texas City Refinery killed 15 and injured 180 besides causing considerable damage to assets and loss of production. It is one of the most widely studied accidents of the chemical industry and is routinely taught in the undergraduate curriculum on process safety. The incident occurred when a distillation column got overfilled during start-up and hot inflammable material spilled out. The apparent cause was the failure of level instruments that failed to alert the operators to the imminent danger. Yet, the 341-page report issued by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) attributed it squarely to management failure. The refinery did not have a safe blowdown system to face the kind of scenario that presented itself on that fateful day in March. BP’s cost-cutting measures prevented them from investing in plant modernization. The plant was also seriously understaffed. The report went on to castigate BP management for their poor safety culture. BP accepted the conclusions and recommendations of CSB in total.

Layers of Protection
The touchstone of safety in the chemical industry is the famous 9 “Layers of Protection”.  he innermost core is the inherent safety built around 4 principles of Minimise, Substitute, Moderate, and Simplify. The 3 layers of protection ascribed to control and instrumentation are sandwiched between the inner core of inherent safety and 5 outer layers of physical protection (relief devices and bunds) and emergency response systems. The instrumented layers are always vulnerable to failure, either accidentally or intentionally. The focus should thus be on strengthening the inner core and making the outer layers more robust.

Age of Automation
Automation is the central column around which the nine pillars of Industry 4.0 are constructed. Sensors and transmitters have become exceedingly smart. Connectivity speeds are lightning fast. Inanimate objects can communicate with each other without human intervention. Supercomputers fitted with AI-based algorithms can outthink us and come up with ingenuous solutions to challenging problems. Will the chemical plant operation be taken over by robots and AI? The COVID-19 pandemic has destroyed and disrupted things in unimaginable ways. The unthinkable of yesterday is very much in
the realm of possibility today. The chemical industry cannot be immune to the tsunami of change that is sweeping across the world.

Epilogue
Will automation improve safety in the chemical industry is a moot point. The case for deploying robots has never been more attractive in the wake of the pandemic. They will neither fall sick nor get tired. But surrendering human oversight may not be prudent.
We are already familiar with how airlines and banks are brought to their knees when systems develop glitches. Humans are unable to perform tasks that they were comfortable
doing just the other day. An ever-increasing reliance on computers has already dulled many of our skills like memory, visualization, and mental arithmetic. Automation should not atrophy our minds and safety culture.

Readers’ responses may be sent to:
k.sahasranaman@gmail.com or
chemindigest@gmail.com

Sterlite Copper Project in Tamil Nadu – Victim of Motivated Activism and Vote Bank Politics

Chemical Industry Digest
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Sterlite Copper Project in Tamil Nadu – Victim of Motivated Activism and Vote Bank Politics

When the history of India’s industrial developments and growth would be recorded, Sterlite Copper project in Tamil Nadu would certainly get a prominent mention, as a case study of a profitable and technologically advanced project being brought down due to sustained campaign against the project by environmental activists ( obviously, sustaining the campaign for long period require fund support), half-informed media campaign and vote bank politics of the politicians.

The story of Sterlite Copper is a checkered history of the project shutting and reopening more than once due to the state government’s closure orders, the intervention of the Green Tribunal permitting the project for operation, second-time closure order of the state government and court ruling in favour of the project and now court ruling against the project. This story is too recent and well known and therefore, does not need further elaboration in this article.

The present scenario is that the copper smelter plant of Sterlite Copper was closed down by the Tamil Nadu government in May 2018, based on a similar order of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. Sterlite Copper moved the High Court of Madras against the closure and the court gave its judgement, upholding the closure. Now, Sterlite Copper would appeal against the Madras High Court order to the Supreme Court and one would not know as to what would be the verdict of Supreme Court, though, on earlier occasions, Supreme Court has provided conditional approval for the operation of the Sterlite Copper.

Sterlite Copper project in Tuticorin originally involved an investment of over Rs. 3000 crores and has been successfully operating for the last several years with a consistent track record and made India to be a net exporter of valuable copper metal. Sterlite Copper has successfully challenged several multinational copper producers in the international market and brought laurels to India.

Sterlite Copper operated using imported copper concentrate and produced copper wire rods and also has a large sulphuric acid plant of capacity 12 lakh tonne per annum, which is one of the largest sulphuric acid plants in the country.

By way of countering the anti-Sterlite Copper campaign, Sterlite Copper has repeatedly pointed out that it has not violated any environmental regulations and has been operating as per the stipulated norms.

One accusation against Sterlite Copper is that it was emitting sulphur dioxide gas beyond permissible level that was alleged to have caused atmospheric pollution in the Tuticorin area. Sterlite Copper has denied this and has submitted its records to show that its emission level is much below the permitted level and it has adequate environmental protection equipment such as desulphurization units.

The fact is that there are several coal-based thermal power plants and sulphuric acid plants in Tuticorin, not far away from the Sterlite Copper plant. The coal-based thermal power plants in Tuticorin may be emitting sulphur dioxide gas, since they do not have flue gas desulphurization units. It is quite possible that if any sulphur dioxide emission level in Tuticorin has been above normal, it might have been due to the operation of the coal-based thermal power plants or other sulphuric acid plant or several other possible reasons such as large scale seaport operations in Tuticorin, heavy vehicle movement using diesel fuel for transportation of goods to and from the port, etc.

This has been pointed out even by the Green Tribunal after its investigation. Obviously, about sulphur dioxide emission, Sterlite Copper is sinned against rather than sinning.

Another major issue that was raised against Sterlite Copper was that the operation of the plant caused cancer amongst the local population. This allegation too was effectively countered by Sterlite Copper stating that none of its over 1000 employees and their families living in the quarters and nearby areas and none of its over 1000 contract labourers working in Sterlite Copper premises had suffered from cancer.

Several neutral persons also commented that internationally, there is no conclusive evidence till now about the cause for the cancer disease. It is pointed out that there are several cancer patients in Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, and many other towns and cities in India, where no copper plant is in operation.

The activists have alleged groundwater contamination due to the operation of the unit. However, Sterlite Copper pointed out that no water is let out and the used water is entirely treated and reused.

Another issue raised was the accumulation of copper slag. Sterlite Copper said that it has sold the slag to an individual who has stored it ten kilometres away. But, the authorities have not allowed the slag to be moved out. Further, the copper slag is allowed to be used in road construction and is not a harmful matter.

One more allegation was that the imported copper concentrate is causing arsenic contamination in the soil. This has not been proved.

In several parts of India such as Midnapur in West Bengal and Shenkotta region in Tamil Nadu which is not far off from Sterlite Copper plant, are known to have arsenic contamination in the subsoil for several decades. Arsenic removal water treatment plants have been in operation in several regions in Tamil Nadu, long before the Sterlite Copper plant was set up at Tuticorin.

Further, the fact is that two more copper plants are operating in India in other states, where there is no environmental issue raised.

Now, Sterlite Copper plant remains closed and sealed for over two years now. The plant is not far away from the seashore and salty wind from seashore can have a corrosive impact on the plant and machinery, if not maintained properly. No worthwhile maintenance activity has been carried out to protect the life of the equipment in the Sterlite Copper plant after it was sealed by the Government of Tamil Nadu. No one knows as to what the condition of the equipment is today and what it would cost to reopen the plant, if and when permitted, by carrying out the necessary maintenance activity.

All said and done, Tamil Nadu and India have not gained anything by the closure of the Sterlite Copper and only the environmental activists have derived vicarious satisfaction by raising false allegations and the vote bank politics of Tamil Nadu politicians have yielded results for them.

Thousands of people who were directly and indirectly employed due to Sterlite Copper operations have lost jobs and their families are suffering and the Tamil Nadu government has lost income, as this profit-generating plant was providing considerable tax revenue to the government. India is losing foreign exchange amounting to several thousand crores of rupees by becoming a net importer of copper, in contrast with the earlier position of net exporter of copper.

Sterlite Copper wanted to expand the capacity of the plant at Tuticorin and the necessary permission was granted for this at one time.

In the interest of industrial and economic growth of the state and the country, Tamil Nadu government should order reopening of the existing Sterlite Copper plant after imposing any conditions, if needed in the view of the Tamil Nadu government

Further, the Tamil Nadu government can ask the Sterlite Copper unit not to go ahead with the expansion project, until a detailed investigation would be completed.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has been repeatedly making announcements about the commitment of the government to promote the industrial growth of the state and has announced various project schemes, for which MOU has been signed by the Tamil Nadu government with the project promoters.

However, Tamil Nadu government has conveniently ignored the fact that Tamil Nadu state is being looked upon with suspicion by several prospective project promoters in India and abroad, as it appears that a small group of activists can bring down any project, if they would not be satisfied for whatever reasons and with the state government buckling under the pressure of the activist groups, most of which appear to have political links in a transparent manner.

The Koodankulan Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu suffered earlier due to similar reasons and was delayed by several years, resulting in steep project cost. However, the Nuclear Power plants are now functioning well with no environmental issue, which proves that the protest by the activists against the Nuclear Power project was unnecessary and counterproductive.

Sterlite Copper is now facing a situation similar to what the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu faced earlier.

Indian Scientists Use New Technique to Make Bio fuel from Algae

Chemical Industry Digest
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Indian scientists, under the INSPIRE program of Ministry of science and technology, have developed low-cost biodiesel from microalgae. The technique to use microalgae is developed by a team of scientists led by T Mathimani from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirappalli. Referring to the technique, the ministry said Mathimani and his team have isolated predominant strains of marine microalgal species from the coastal regions of Tamil Nadu for their potential in terms of total organic carbon content and Triacylglycerides(TAG) content for biodiesel production. “The group will formulate a roadmap by which biodiesel can be produced commercially and can be put in an energy market sustainably” said the ministry.
Though algae is being exploited as a third-generation feedstock for the production of biofuels such as bioethanol, biodiesel, biogas, and biohydrogen in different countries, it does not reach a successful peak due to the higher cost issues in cultivation, harvesting and extraction steps.

Scientists Developed Renewable Solvents from Lignin

Chemical Industry Digest
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Scientists at the Joint BioEnergy Institute are developing a closed-loop biorefinery concept that uses waste lignin as a potential process solvent. They synthesized a new and renewable class of deep eutectic solvents. These solvents when mixed with other liquids and used for biomass pretreatment, release sugar from grassy feedstocks for fuel and chemical production.

The solvents are easy to synthesize due to the wide availability of inexpensive waste lignin. Turning waste into an asset makes these renewable solvents an attractive new approach for biomass conversion into biofuels and products that are less expensive. Further, the deep eutectic solvents offer a sustainable alternative to conventional solvents and ionic liquids.

With the development of commercial production of biofuels and bioproducts, it is anticipated that a significant amount of lignin will be generated annually that needs to be converted into desired bioproducts. Ten lignin-derived phenolic compounds were tested as hydrogen bond donors in varying mixtures with choline chloride to synthesize deep DESs, solvents that when mixed have a lower melting temperature than the individual solvents. After initial screening, the team selected and used four DESs for biomass pretreatment of switch grass. The researchers washed the pretreated biomass to remove potential inhibitory effects on enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation. A fresh batch of the DES and choline chloride mixture resulted in approximately 87 percent glucose yield, while recycled DES resulted in decreased yields of 78 percent and 70 percent for second and third rounds, respectively. Biomass processes utilizing these renewable DESs could reduce operating costs by achieving a closed-loop biorefinery that generates the solvents needed for biomass pretreatment from the process of biomass conversion itself.

Water Vapour Can Be a Potential Source of Renewable Energy

Chemical Industry Digest
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A team of researchers from TAU’s Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences led by Prof. Colin Price in collaboration with Prof. Hadas Saaroni and doctoral student Judi Lax has found that electricity materializes in the interaction between water molecules and metal surfaces. Their research has been published in Scientific Reports.
The researchers set out to try to produce a tiny low-voltage battery that utilizes only humidity in the air, building on the findings of earlier discoveries. The scientists conducted a laboratory experiment to determine the voltage between two different metals exposed to high relative humidity, while one is grounded. “We found that there was no voltage between them when the air was dry,” Prof. Price explains. “But once the relative humidity rose above 60%, a voltage began to develop between the two isolated metal surfaces. When we lowered the humidity level to below 60%, the voltage disappeared. When we experimented outside in natural conditions, we saw the same results.
“Water is a very special molecule. During molecular collisions, it can transfer an electrical charge from one molecule to the other. Through friction, it can build up a kind of static electricity. We tried to reproduce electricity in the lab and found that different isolated metal surfaces will build up different amounts of charge from water vapour in the atmosphere, but only if the air relative humidity is above 60%. Water is normally thought of as a good conductor of electricity, not something that can build up-charge on a surface. However, it seems that things are different once the relative humidity exceeds a certain threshold,” Prof. Price says. “If a AA battery is 1.5V, there may be a practical application in the future: to develop batteries that can be charged from water vapour in the air,” Prof. Price adds.

Researchers Find A Way to Keep Iron from Rusting, a Key to Cheaper Renewable Fuels

Chemical Industry Digest
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Researchers at Washington State University have made key progress in economically converting plant materials to fuels by keeping iron from rusting. Led by Yong Wang, Voiland Distinguished Professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, and Shuai Wang from the State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces at Xiamen University, the paper has been published in ACS Catalysis.
Researchers have been trying to overcome a challenge in using plant-based feedstocks for fuel i.e removing oxygen before they can be used. Iron-based catalysts show great promise for being able to remove oxygen, but because the plant materials also contain oxygen, the iron rusts, during the reaction, and then the reaction stops working. In another recently published paper in Chemical Science led by Yong Wang and Junming Sun, a research assistant professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, the researchers discovered a durable iron-based catalyst with a thin carbon graphene layer around it. The graphene layer protected the iron while cesium ions allowed the researchers to tailor its electronic properties for the desired reaction.
“By protecting iron and tuning its properties, these works provide the scientific basis for using earth-abundant and cost-effective iron as catalysts for biomass conversion,” Sun said. “We are trying to make the conversion as economically as possible. The key is trying to find robust catalysts based on low-cost, earth-abundant elements. This is a first step in that direction,” Wang said.

Yale Chemists Find New Way to Make New Nitrogen Products

Chemical Industry Digest
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A team of Yale chemists have found a way to combine atmospheric nitrogen with benzene to make aniline, which is a precursor used to make a variety of synthetic products. Their study has been published in journal Nature.

Yale chemistry professor Patrick Holland, senior author of the study and his colleagues used an iron compound to break down one of the chemical bonds in benzene. They also treated the nitrogen with a silicon compound that allowed the nitrogen to combine with benzene.

“Fundamentally, we’re showing a new way of thinking about how to encourage nitrogen to form new bonds that may be adaptable to making other products,” Holland said. He added that the previous attempts by other researchers to combine atmospheric nitrogen and benzene failed since those attempts used highly reactive derivatives of benzene that would degrade before they could produce a chemical reaction with nitrogen.

Nanoparticles Help in Converting CO2 to Valuable Products

Chemical Industry Digest
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Scientists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany and the University of New South Wales in Australia have adopted the principle from enzymes that produce complex molecules in multi-step reactions. The chemists used carbon dioxide to produce ethanol and propanol.
The team led by Professor Wolfgang Schuhmann from the Centre for Electrochemistry in Bochum and Professor Corina Andronescu from the University of Duisburg-Essen, together with the Australian team led by Professor Justin Gooding and Professor Richard Tilley, reported their research in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“Transferring the cascade reactions of the enzymes to catalytically active nanoparticles could be a decisive step in the design of catalysts,” says Wolfgang Schuhmann. In order to imitate this concept, the researchers synthesized a particle with a silver core surrounded by a porous layer of copper. The silver core serves as the first active centre, the copper layer as the second. Intermediate products formed at the silver core then react in the copper layer to form more complex molecules, which ultimately leave the particle. The German-Australian team showed that the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide can take place with the help of the nanozymes. Several reaction steps on the silver core and copper shell transform the starting material into ethanol or propanol. “There are also other nanoparticles that can produce these products from CO2 without the cascade principle,” says Wolfgang Schuhmann. “However, they require considerably more energy.”

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