Lake Maracaibo: polluted by a permanent black tide

Smelling like an oil refinery, the vast expanse of Lake Maracaibo has become polluted by its own reserves of crude as Venezuela's economic collapse has left wells and pipelines in ruin.

New material created to clean up fossil fuel industry

Researchers at the University of Sydney have created a new material that has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions released during the refinement process of crude oil by up to 28 percent.

Shrinking snowcaps fuel harmful algal blooms in Arabian sea

A uniquely resilient organism all but unheard of in the Arabian Sea 20 years ago has been proliferating and spreading at an alarming pace, forming thick, malodorous green swirls and filaments that are visible even from space. ...

Method makes refineries more efficient

(PhysOrg.com) -- Refineries could trim millions of dollars in energy costs annually by using a new method developed at Purdue University to rearrange the distillation sequence needed to separate crude petroleum into products.

Better batteries from waste sulfur

A new chemical process can transform waste sulfur into a lightweight plastic that may improve batteries for electric cars, reports a University of Arizona-led team. The new plastic has other potential uses, including optical ...

Making manufacturing ultrapure hydrogen gas easier than ever

Pure hydrogen (H2) is an important chemical widely used in the chemical industry, many semiconductor fabrication processes, as well as in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Almost all of the hydrogen (H2) gas ...

Total starts production at French biofuel refinery

Total on Wednesday said it had begun producing biofuel at a refinery in southern France, a project that has sparked an outcry from environmentalists and farmers over its plans to import palm oil.

A complete solution for oil-spill cleanup

Scientists are describing what may be a "complete solution" to cleaning up oil spills—a superabsorbent material that sops up 40 times its own weight in oil and then can be shipped to an oil refinery and processed to recover ...

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