Texaco/Zenon link for solvent recovery

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Texaco/Zenon link for solvent recovery Texaco Inc of the US and Zenon Environmental Inc of Canada have announced that they are in discussion over a collaborative agreement to commercialise pervaporation technology for solvent purification and recovery. Under the proposed agreement Texaco's licensing arm, Texaco Development Corporation, will license Zenon, of Burlington, Ontario, to use Texaco proprietary technology developed at its research centre at Beacon, New York.

Texaco's proprietary membranes and processes could then be used in systems designed by Zenon and marketed by them. Zenon has extensive design and marketing expertise in the membrane field.

Texaco has described its technology as "a major advancement in providing an economic solution to recovery of certain solvents." It is understood that the companies will be in a position to install industrial plants incorporating the new pervaporation technology from 1992 onwards.

A full agreement is expected shortly, and the technology will be on offer soon afterwards.

Confluence of interest The French water utility and construction group, Lyonnaise des Eaux, has taken a 25% interest in Bouchier, the German environmental processing and water treatment equipment company.

Pyrogen exterminator The Japanese companies, Daicel Chemical Industries and Tanabe Seikaku Co have recently launched Pyrosep-C, a gel-type pyrogen adsorbent for use in blood treatment and in preparation of injection doses. This second product of this type introduced by the companies is based on a hard gel, which can be washed in a column at high flowrate and has a high ionic strength and wide pH range (3-11).

Pyrogens cause fevers when introduced into the blood, and conventionally they are carefully excluded by a number of methods during the production of injection preparations. According to the suppliers, however, there has been to date no proper method for the effective elimination of pyrogens from such relatively unstable high molecular weight substances as blood preparations,

vaccines, enzymes and antigens. The new adsorbent, like the previous Pyrosep

products, are affinity adsorbents with high affinity for pyrogens.

Oil separator is a whizz The device which threatens to oust membrane separation from uranium enrichment (see News, Membrane Technology No 9), the annular centrifuge, is now being proposed for use in separation of oil from water, according to research for the US Department of Energy. E G & G Idaho, of Idaho Falls, in work sponsored by the DOE, has recognised the potential for using the annular centrifuge as a contactor for rapid separation of oil/water mixtures in environmental clean-up processes. According to Dave Meikrantz of E G & G, bench scale tests achieved 99% separation, which is sufficient for water to be re-used for some purposes without further processing. The system was tested on Valdez crude in the laboratory, and Meikrantz says that a full scale unit achieving the same level of separation would be able to process approximately 400 gallons per minute.

In clean-up associated with oilspill disasters, water could be returned directly to the body of water from which the mixture was taken, while the separated oil could be captured directly in containers.

Through E G & G Idaho's technology transfer programme, the DOE has awarded exclusive licensing rights to Intra-Sept Inc, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

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Porous paint for permeability- and other properties A new type of paint, trade name Eintecs, consisting of a special urethane resin and a composite produced from gelatin plastic, has been developed by Cashew Co, Omiya, Saitama prefecture, Japan.

When applied and cured, the "Eintecs" gelatin component can be removed by dissolving in hot water, leaving micropores on the surface of the coated film. In this way various qualities are imparted to the film; for example, it is non-glaring, has excellent gas permeability, hygroscopicity and moisture-releasing properties. In addition it has a soft, natural, skin-like texture, according to the developers.

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