Process Sciences - Winners
A greater understanding of the fundamental properties of materials and their thermodynamics have brought about a wealth of idea in industrial processing, where efficiency is crucial.
Jul 12
2010 R&D 100 Process Science Winners
7/31/2009
The performance of certain technologies depends heavily on pore size, and, until the recent arrival of Tunable Nanoporous Carbon, developed by Y-Carbon, Inc. (King of Prussia, Penn.) and Drexel Univ. (Philadelphia, Penn.), no manufacturing methods were able to provide the control of the pore size. Starting with an inorganic precursor, such as silicon carbide, materials scientists etched the metal or metalloid from the carbide in a halogen environment, such as chlorine, at elevated temperature.
7/31/2009
The Symyx Screening Pressure Reactor (SPR) from Symyx Technologies (Sunnyvale, Calif.) is a refining and petrochemical test platform developed with high-throughput in mind, which is able to screen catalysts up to 400°C for refining and petrochemicals applications and high-pressure operation to 1,500 psig for fine chemicals applications under a wide variety of conditions.
7/31/2009
The Ultra-High Precision Digital Polishing for Copper Interconnect Manufacturing (DCMP), developed by Sinmat Inc. (Gainesville, Fla.), brings high-uniformity, high-planarity removal of materials used in 300/450 mm semiconductor wafer fabrication.
7/31/2009
The PulseForge 3100 with Pulse Thermal Processing, developed jointly by NovaCentrix (Austin, Texas) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, Tenn.), is a process technology based on curing technologies capable of processing high-temperature functional inks and thin-film materials on low temperature substrates.
7/31/2009
The High-Efficiency Microstructured Semiconductor Neutron Detectors developed by researchers at the SMART Laboratory at Kansas State Univ. and Alion Science and Technology (Alexandria, Va.) is a new technique that creates perforations in semiconductor diodes that are backfilled with neutron absorbing materials, thereby creating high efficiency perforated solid state neutron detectors.
7/30/2009
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) Thermomagnetic Processing Technology offers a way to leave high costs behind through the use of superconducting magnets, which add a new dimension to the phase equilibria for a given material and also introduce a continuum of continuous cooling transformation curves.
7/30/2009
Lasonix, a new technology from Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, N.M.), can be used to grow and fabricate semiconductor, metallic, and insulating structures in three dimensions while controlling their composition, doping levels, and crystal structure.
7/30/2009
Precision Nanoparticles was the result of serendipitous experimentation by a team of researchers at Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho Fall, Idaho) and Idaho State Univ. where the team was attempting a traditional nanoparticle production method in which a supercritical fluid is used as a solvent to dissolve the source material.
9/26/2008
Bio-Based Powder Coating Technology is a low-temperature powder coating technology developed by researchers at Battelle (Columbus, Ohio) and four other partners. The bio-based powder coating technology combines resin compositions derived from renewable bio-sources and is compatible with existing formulation, processing, and application practices in the industry.
9/26/2008
As oil prices increase, the demand for coal rises rapidly. But coal mining often has negative effects on the surrounding environment. There are hundreds of contaminated mine sites in the U.S., and 144 in Pennsylvania alone. That was the impetus behind the Battelle's (Columbus, Ohio) development of F-LLX: Flotation-Liquid Liquid Extraction. F-LLX is an integrated process to purify acid mine drainage (AMD) water while simultaneously extracting the impurities and converting them into valuable co-products.
9/26/2008
Improving the value and performance of components made from stainless steel and other alloys was the impetus behind the SAT12 Patented Surface-Hardening Process, developed by Swagelok Co. (Solon, Ohio). The SAT12 process dramatically enhances the surface hardness of stainless steel while improving corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and fatigue properties, while retaining significant ductility.
9/26/2008
Multi-Scale Materials: Integrated Processing Method from researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, Wash.), is an integrated method for generating nanoscale- to macroscale-sized structures of different geometrical distributions in a single process, ensuring a resulting set of materials with identical chemical makeup.
9/25/2008
Wort boiling has the highest energy requirement of any of the brewing processes. It can account for up to 60% of the total steam demand of a brewery. Such high demand led John Heathcote at Pursuit Dynamics PLC (Cambridgeshire, UK) to develop the PDX Wort Heater, an external wort boiler, an alternative to an internal heater that delivers energy savings of up to 50% for the intensive wort boiling process.