February 2011

The February issue contains a wealth of interesting reading (see below) but I would like to draw your attention to our annual Awards (see ad alongside). Crown Publications invites engineers from all disciplines to submit their papers for these Awards, as long as the submission is relevant to the chemical engineering community.

We also invite each chemical engineering department from all the tertiary education institutions to submit the final year projects of its three top students in both the undergrad and postgrad categories.

Entries for the Specialization Awards' two sub-categories (Energy and Water) are open to all those whose research is relevant to the topics.

In all cases, team submissions are allowed, but prize money will be divided evenly among team members (or in a ratio agreed to by all team members).

We do hope that you will help us make this year's Awards bigger and better than ever!

Closing date for entries (which should not be longer than six typed pages, double-spacing) is 29 April 2011. A cocktail party will be held later in the year when winners will be announced and prizes awarded. In addition, the winning articles will be published in future issues of ‘Chemical Technology'.

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Developing a sustainability framework for assessing bioenergy projects

Focusing on the situation relating to bioenergy in India, this article provides an analysis of the currently available methodologies for assessing the varied impacts, both positive and negative, of bioenergy production. This contextual information is then framed within a perspective of planning for sustainability; and the reasoning behind development of the RE-Impact framework, drawing particularly from field experience in India, is presented.

Separate to operate optimally: wastewater treatment by adsorption

Bioenergy is a field that a lot of research efforts need to be focused on in response to the increasing energy demands. In this regard, process optimization and catalyst development are research areas that are attracting a lot of attention. There is very little information regarding the evaluation of the cost of preparation of the support materials against the performance. If the catalyst is not firmly attached to the zeolite surface the catalyst is washed out. This reduces the performance of the modified zeolite and results in an increase in the product separation cost.