Laboratory Equipment

Carbon Aerogels Absorbs Hydrocarbons

Foamy aerogels made of carbon, like their more well studied silicon-based cousins, have innumerable potential uses, from catalysts to sensors. Until now, their synthesis has been expensive or complicated, or has required toxic materials. A team led by Yu Shuhong at the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Micrscale (HFNL), Univ.of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is pursuing their production from biomass. They selected bacterial cellulose (BC) pellicles, a commonly used, inexpensive, nontoxic form of biomass consisting of a tangled network of cellulose nanofibers, as precursor to produce carbon nanofiber aerogels in large-scale. This biomass can easily be produced on an industrial scale through microbial fermentation.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/carbon-aerogels-absorbs-hydrocarbons

New Technology Aids Old Energy

Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade – just not the one we expected. By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae – or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the sun didn’t shine or the wind didn’t blow, power would flow out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers.

Fossil fuels? They were going to be expensive and scarce, relics of an earlier, dirtier age. But in the race to conquer energy technology, Old Energy is winning. Oil companies big and small have used technology to find a bounty of oil and natural gas so large that worries about running out have melted away.

Investors Shift Focus to Cleaner Drilling

A decade ago, large investors in so-called clean technology had a straightforward goal: finance companies that would help eliminate the world’s dependence on oil, natural gas and coal.

But as profits from wind, solar, biofuels and other alternatives consistently fell short of expectations – and as the fossil fuel business boomed– things got complicated. Venture capitalists and other investment funds started stretching the definition of clean technology almost beyond recognition in an effort to make money while clinging to their environmental ideals.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/investors-shift-focus-cleaner-drilling

Gulf of Mexico Can Self-Cleanse Oil Spills

The Gulf of Mexico may have a much greater natural ability to self-clean oil spills than previously believed, an expert in bioremediation said at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Terry Hazen says that conclusion has emerged from research following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which by some estimates spilled 4.9 million barrels (210 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. His research team used a powerful new approach for identifying microbes in the environment to discover previously unknown bacteria, naturally present in the Gulf water, that consume and break down crude oil.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/gulf-mexico-can-self-cleanse-oil-spills

Feds Send Corrective Order to Exxon

Federal pipeline safety officials issued a corrective action order to ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. after one of its pipelines ruptured last week in central Arkansas.

The order from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration comes after ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline ruptured Friday in the small city of Mayflower, about 25 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/feds-send-corrective-order-exxon

Models Key to Safer Deepwater Oil Production

Rice Univ. researchers are developing a comprehensive model that will predict how brine, oil and gas drawn from ultra-deep wells react to everything encountered on the way up to the surface and to suggest strategies to maintain the flow.

Deepwater production involves hydrocarbons but also formation water (brine), chemicals and materials that make up the complex machinery of modern oil extraction. Under high pressures and temperatures, the brine can form acidic mixtures that corrode pipes or form solid mineral deposits, called scale, that inhibit flow in a well.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/models-key-safer-deepwater-oil-production

Trial to Begin for Gulf Oil Spill Litigation

Nearly three years after a deadly rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico triggered the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, a federal judge in New Orleans is set to preside over a high-stakes trial for the raft of litigation spawned by the disaster.

Barring an 11th-hour settlement, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will hear several hours of opening statements today by lawyers for the companies involved in the 2010 spill and the plaintiffs who sued them. And the judge, not a jury, ultimately could decide how much more money BP PLC and its partners on the ill-fated drilling project owe for their roles in the environmental catastrophe.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/trial-begin-gulf-oil-spill-litigation

Pipeline from Canada to Texas Wouldn’t Affect Climate

In a shift in strategy, the company that wants to build an oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas says that the project will have no measurable effect on global warming.

Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s president for energy and oil pipelines, says opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline have grossly inflated its likely impact on emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/02/pipeline-canada-texas-wouldnt-affect-climate

EPA Changed Course Under Oil Company Pressure

When a man in a Fort Worth suburb reported his family’s drinking water had begun “bubbling” like champagne, the federal government sounded an alarm: an oil company may have tainted their wells while drilling for natural gas.

At first, the Environmental Protection Agency believed the situation was so serious that it issued a rare emergency order in late 2010 that said at least two homeowners were in immediate danger from a well saturated with flammable methane. More than a year later, the agency rescinded its mandate and refused to explain why. Now, a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press and interviews with company representatives show that the EPA had scientific evidence against the driller, Range Resources, but changed course after the company threatened not to cooperate with a national study into a common form of drilling called hydraulic fracturing. Regulators set aside an analysis that concluded the drilling could have been to blame for the contamination.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/epa-changed-course-under-oil-company-pressure

Today in Lab History: David Wesson

David Wesson was an American food chemist who created Wesson Oil. He experimented with purifying cotton seed oil, developed a system in 1900 to make the pure oil palatable, and formed the Southern Oil Company to market it.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/09/today-lab-history