ICIS Chemicals Confidential: hi-tech Archives

Greener plastics from potatoes

By Barbara Ortner on July 3, 2009 12:20 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Potato Portraits by Ginou Choueiri May 2009.jpg

"I say potay-to, you say potah-to ..." but soon you'll be saying compostable plastics, even if it doesn't scan.

Scientists at the UK's University of Leicester have been modifying starch and cellulose into plastic materials which can be rotted down on the compost heap.

They are showing off their greener experiments at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition (#sse09), in London, which began on 30 June. Their exhibit, "Plastics from Potatoes, Rubber from Rice" is one of more than 20 interactive exhibits chosen for the exhibition.

Click here for the Blog's ever popular posting on dancing potatoes.

Heaviest potato found in Lebanon

(Photo Rex: Potato Portrait by Ginou Choueiri, Beirut, Lebanon - May 2009)

First outing for new fluoropolymer Wimbledon roof

By Barbara Ortner on June 30, 2009 12:18 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Wimbledon Andy Murray Centre Court 29 June 2009 Rex.jpg

At last the new roof on Centre Court, Wimbledon, was rolled out on Monday evening, and in all the fuss about the roof and of course the first tennis match beneath it, and the lateness of the hour, was anyone interested in what it was made of?

According to its designers, Populous, the retractable roof is made of "durable Tenara fabric, concertinaed across the span of the ceiling. Held up by ten 77 metre roof trusses, each weighing 70 tonnes, the fabric displays a 40% translucency which allows light to penetrate and crucially reach the grass below. It takes a maximum of ten minutes to close the structure which used approximately 5,200 sq m of fabric to create. 100% of materials used for the roof are recyclable."

And what is this wonder-product Tenara? It's PolyTetraFluoroEthylene (PTFE) - most commonly known by its DuPont brand name Teflon.

While on the subject of tennis, it has been brought to the Blog's attention that the annual EPCA tennis tournament, held at the conference for many a year, has been dropped along with the other sports events, because of the relatively low number of participants. Sign of the times ...

Click here for more blog postings on spectacular petrochemical roofs!

Sports

Fabulous chemical plant photos

By Barbara Ortner on June 26, 2009 9:32 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Artistic photos of chemical plant are hidden away in this corner of the ICIS Connect forum, where photographers have uploaded some of their most spectacular shots.

The Blog has followed the trail which leads to group of 37 member photographers on Flickr with a collection of 96 dramatic and stylish photos of chemical plant, taken by real enthusiasts.

With permission from the photographers, the Blog is thinking of running this as a regular feature - taking inspiration from fellow Reed bloggers at "BigLorryBlog" which is dedicated to endless photos of, yes, big lorries (trucks), and has an unfathomably huge and loyal readership.

"Eastman Plant in Malaysia" by Hanim Rafar.

Plant 2 LyondellBasell plant at Maasvlakte.jpg

"The new LyondellBasell factory at the Maasvlakte" by Peet.

"Solvay factory near Barcelona, Spain" by Jorge Franganillo.

Plastic windows face wrath of conservationists

By Barbara Ortner on June 23, 2009 1:35 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

"I'm afraid conservation areas are suffering a plague of plastic windows," the chief executive of English Heritage was quoted in today's Telegraph.co.uk.

"I would never in a million years put one in," he continued.

The conservationist body described uPVC windows and doors as the most serious of all threats to beautiful places of "special architectural or historical interest."

The Blog was amused to notice at the foot of the article in the UK's leading conservative newspaper a series of adverts for uPVC windows - "Double Glazing Sale," "Beautiful Conservatories," and "Half Price Windows Offer," because although the Telegraph's readers may resent all change to the fabric of the nation, they do like to extend and renovate their own homes.

(photo: Breckenridge Conservatories)

Washing machine replaces water with tiny nylon polymer beads

By Barbara Ortner on June 22, 2009 2:00 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

A new green-friendly washing machine -- that uses only one cup of water along with tiny nylon polymer beads - is set to go on sale next year, according to this article today.

The machine leaves clothes virtually dry and aims to save up to 90% of water used by conventional machines, and 30% less energy. Thousands of tiny, reusable nylon polymer beads attract and absorb dirt under humid conditions.

The Blog is just wondering how the nylon beads will impart that newly-washed freshness, or whether additional chemicals will need to be added into the mix.

(photo: Rex)

Acrylic 3D specs headline at Cannes Film Festival

By Barbara Ortner on May 14, 2009 5:30 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

cannes film festival may 2009 courtesy of Rex_921240a[1].jpg

Acrylic 3D specs were the must-have accessory as the Cannes Film Festival kicked off with Disney's animated film Up on Wednesday night.

As filmgoers at cinema's biggest and glitziest gathering ditched their designer shades, it's likely that they gave not a moment's thought to the petrochemical material in their plastic anaglyph glasses, which were there to enhance the film's spectacular 3D special effects, according to this article today on Yahoo News.

(Photo Rex)

Twittering executives are making a complete hash of it - Kellaway

By Barbara Ortner on April 27, 2009 1:00 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Twitter may be "potentially the best communication tool there is; the trouble is that most executives are making a complete hash of using it," says Lucy Kellaway in today's Financial Times.

"Either they fill it with mundane personal detail, or they fill it with mundane professional detail ... The first scores higher on embarrassment; the second on tedium."

And "if the (UK) Budget can be done on Twitter, it must be possible to do all corporate communications the same way, and put e-mail in the dustbin forever. To force everyone to say what they have to say in 140 characters deals with the communications overload at a stroke."

"The bulk of internal e-mails are exercises in back-covering or throat-clearing, and so if they were forced down to their barest essentials it would become clear that there was nothing there at all."

Cleaning up oil from tar sands - New Scientist

By Barbara Ortner on April 16, 2009 12:22 PM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

There's a good article in this week's New Scientist on "Can Oil from Tar Sands be Cleaned Up?" The answer it seems is yes.

"Canadian tar sands contain an estimated 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil, second only to Saudi Arabia's reserves, (and they) ... dig up the tarry bitumen in gigantic open pit mines, then separate and refine it. The process destroys habitat and creates vast lakes of toxic residues. The Canadian government estimates that oil from tar sands takes three to five times as much energy to produce as conventional oil."

However ... "Nascent technologies may further reduce the greenhouse gas cost of tar sands extraction ... transform the bitumen into lighter oil underground, before it is pumped to the surface ... and many of the toxic sulphur and nitrogen compounds remain underground, which removes the surface pollution."

Sound-absorbing polyurethane hotel bathtubs

By Barbara Ortner on April 6, 2009 2:37 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

BSB PU hotel bathtub.jpg How can I resist a press release out today from Bayer entitled "Long-lasting bathtime enjoyment," which my training buddy Peter T has just forwarded to me?

"Hotel bathtubs need to be considerably more robust than their domestic equivalents. Constant use by a succession of hotel guests subjects them to particularly high stresses, including the use of heavy-duty detergents. The materials used to make these bathtubs therefore need to be suitably resistant and at the same time offer good sound-absorbing properties."

Packing a laptop for NPRA?

By Barbara Ortner on March 26, 2009 5:40 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Is it worth packing a laptop to go to a conference like NPRA? Can't a Blackberry do everything you want while you're on the move? The extra weight in carry-on luggage and the nuisance of unpacking a laptop for security checks make it an extremely undesirable travelling companion, but if you're going to be writing articles and uploading pictures, a Blackberry just won't hack it.

But show me a cute little netbook, and that's another story. They are selling like hot cakes - 35 million this year, and 139 million in 2013 apparently - but a review of the top four netbooks in today's New York Times says cruelly:

"A netbook is a laptop with a shrunken screen, an undersize keyboard and a processor that's so slow, you'd have laughed at it in 2007. The netbooks' crucial attractions are tiny dimensions, light weight and low cost, usually $350 to $500. Otherwise, they're all about compromises.

The term "netbook" is a euphemism, intended to stress its main functions: e-mail, Web browsing, chat, Skype and word processing. The hope is to distract you from what netbooks are too feeble to do well: Photoshop, video editing, games and so on."

For more laptop blog postings, click here for:

Top 10 new technologies

Shouldering the pain of laptop use

Calculators are for wimps