The world’s population is ageing, just like us. As we enter the era of “super-aged societies”1), governments, communities and businesses need to adapt. A new ISO technical committee has just been formed…

When we think about the most dire threats to our planet, poor sanitation rarely tops the list. Yet it’s a significant (and in some cases immediate) contributor to sickness and pollution in both rural and…

Global mobility, intensive farming and urban developments that have spread into once uninhabitable areas have made water access, use, and reuse, critical areas for International Standards. 

Water connects every aspect of life. Today, one in ten people lack access to safe water and about 2.3 billion people live without adequate sanitation, with disastrous social and economic consequences….

Why do we need to manage global water resources? According to environmental scientist Dr Debbie Chapman, our health and well-being depend on it – and the payback is tremendous. Here, Dr Chapman explains…

Ageing wastewater systems are under threat from growing populations, urbanization, pollution and climate change, not to mention human behaviour. However, despite these challenges and fears for health and…

Fast pyrolysis for liquids has been developed in recent decades as a fast and flexible method to provide high yields of liquid products. An overview of this promising field is given, with a comprehensive introduction as well as a practical guide to those thinking of applying fast pyrolysis liquids (bio-oil) in various applications. It updates the literature with recent developments that have occurred since the reviews cited herein. Part I contains an introduction to the background, science, feedstocks, technology and products available for fast pyrolysis. Part II will detail some of the promising applications as well as pre-treatment and bio-oil upgrading options. The applications include use of bio-oil as an energy carrier, precursor to second generation biofuels, as part of a biorefinery concept and upgrading to fuels and chemicals.

The post Challenges and Opportunities in Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass: Part I appeared first on Johnson Matthey Technology Review.

World trade has transformed food retailing and driven the development of technology for the transportation and storage of horticultural products, providing year-round supply of fruit and vegetables. Horticultural produce is highly perishable, as fruit and vegetables continue their metabolic processes that lead to ripening and senescence after harvest, making them ultimately unmarketable. Advanced postharvest technologies are essential for reducing food waste while maintaining high standards of safety and quality. Together with cold storage, controlled atmosphere (CA) and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) have been applied to alter the produce’s internal and external environment, decreasing its metabolic activity and extending shelf-life. Both CA and MAP have benefitted from technological innovation. Respiratory quotient control has improved the management of conventional and recently developed CA systems; gas scavengers have made MAP more efficient; and the inclusion of natural additives has enhanced food safety across the supply chain. This paper critically reviews the application of new postharvest techniques to manipulate gaseous environments and highlights areas that require further study.

The post Recent Advances in Controlled and Modified Atmosphere of Fresh Produce appeared first on Johnson Matthey Technology Review.

Hexamethylenetetramine (hmta) was chosen as a model ligand. Each of the four nitrogen atoms has a pair of unshared electrons and behaves like an amine base, undergoing protonation and N-alkylation and being able to form coordination compounds with many inorganic elements. The ligand can be used as an outer coordination sphere modulator of the inner coordination sphere and as a crosslinking agent in dinuclear and multinuclear coordination compounds. It can also be used as a model for bioactive molecules to form a great number of complexes with different inorganic salts containing other molecules. Studies of hmta coordination compounds with different metal salts have therefore attracted much attention. The present review summarises the synthesis, preparation, structure analysis and applications of coordination compounds of hmta with different metal salts.

The post Coordination Compounds of Hexamethylenetetramine with Metal Salts: A Review appeared first on Johnson Matthey Technology Review.