Long-standing plant biochemistry mystery solved

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have discovered how an enzyme "knows" where to insert a double bond when desaturating ...

Hydrocarbons in the deep Earth?

The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of ...

A novel method to obtain acetone in slow-cost, simple manner

Acetone is an essential chemical industry input and is used in the manufacturing of a wide array of products, such as adhesives, antibiotics, electronic components, solvents and removers, inks and vitamins, among others. ...

Preparing a renewable route to rubber material

A key ingredient in the manufacture of car tires and sneaker soles could be made sustainably, following new analysis of an old catalytic process. Butadiene, an essential component of synthetic rubber, is currently produced ...

Electric shock to petroleum coke generates sustainable graphene

Researchers at Texas A&M University and ExxonMobil are developing a method to reprocess petroleum coke—a byproduct of refining crude oil—into a sustainable, high-value alternative. Using a chemical process called electrochemical ...

Turning wood into plastic

Efforts to shift from petrochemical plastics to renewable and biodegradable plastics have proven tricky—the production process can require toxic chemicals and is expensive, and the mechanical strength and water stability ...

Metal-organic frameworks cut energy consumption of petrochemicals

In the chemical and the petrochemical industries, separating molecules in an energy-efficient way is one of the most important challenges. Overall, the separation processes account for around 40% of the energy consumed in ...

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