Solvents define pivotal properties for chemical processing and chemical reactions, and can be as much game-changing as catalysts are. A solvent can be the key to a good chemical process,...

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Liquid–liquid equilibrium (LLE) data for the ternary chemical system of {water + phenol + (propan-2-yl) benzene (cumene)} were presented at temperatures of 293.2, 298.2, and 308.2 K and under the ambient pressure of 81.5 kPa. Experiments were performed based on the cloud point titration method and refractive index measurements. Results show that the phenol solubility in cumene is significantly higher than in water especially at higher phenol concentrations. The phenol distribution coefficient and separation factor were obtained within 1.490–3.418 and 82.06–300.24, respectively. The capability of cumene, as a solvent to extract phenol from aqueous solutions, particularly for low level phenol concentrations, was revealed. The consistency of tie line data was sufficiently assessed by the Othmer–Tobias and Bachman equations. Meanwhile, the well-known NRTL and UNIQUAC thermodynamic models were employed to reproduce the experimental data and obtaining the binary interaction parameters. The appropriate low value root-mean-square deviations confirm the good agreement between experimental data and the model correlated values.

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Growing concern about the supply of goods under the COVID pandemic due to border restrictions and community lockdown has made us aware of the limitations of the global supply chain. Fertilizers are pivotal for the growth and welfare of humankind, and there is more than a century of history in industrial technology. Ammonia is the key platform chemical here which can be chemically diversified to all kinds of fertilizers. This article puts a perspective on production technologies that can enable a supply of ammonia locally and on-demand in Australia, for the farmers to produce resilient and self-sustained fertilizers. To assess the validity of such a new business model, multiobjective optimization has to be undergone, and computing is the solution to rank the millions of possible solutions. In this lieu, an economic optimization framework for the Australian ammonia supply chain is presented. The model seeks to address the economic potential of distributed ammonia plants across Australia. Different techniques for hydrogen and related ammonia production such as thermal plasma, nonthermal plasma, and electrolysis (all typifying technology disruption), and mini Haber–Bosch (typifying scale disruption) are benchmarked to the central mega plant on a world-scale using conventional technology, verifying that “Moore’s Law” (Mack, C. A. IEEE Trans. 2011, 24 (2), 202–207) of growing bigger and bigger is not the only path to sustainable agriculture. Results show that ammonia can be produced at $317/ton at a regional scale using thermal plasma hydrogen generation which could be competitive to the conventional production model, if credit in terms of lead time and carbon footprint could be taken into account.

In this work, we developed a biphasic designer solvent system for enzymatic biotransformation, to demonstrate automatic purification and enzyme reuse, in the frame of a new process concept reported recently (solvent-enabled factory, One-Flow project). "Automatic" refers to instantaneous operation by preferential solubility between two immiscible phases, which does not require (sophisticated) process control ("automated"). The reaction studied is lipase-catalyzed hydrolysis of 4-nitrophenyl acetate. As a designer solvent, the class of ionic liquids (ILs) has been chosen, and their usage is largely documented in the biocatalysis literature. Three ILs are chosen; all with the 1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium cation and differing in their anions, being tetrafluoroborate, bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)-imide, and hexafluoro-phosphate. The first IL forms a monophasic system and thus was left out of consideration. The other two form the desired biphasic system, when being contacted with water, respectively. The operation of that system is hampered by foaming, that is, the formation of an interfacial emulsion layer as the third phase, which makes phase separation difficult. Therefore, we investigated in detail the phase behavior of the batch and flow-processed fluid systems under various process conditions. Batch processing, which causes tremendous foaming, needs intense stirring because of the high IL viscosity. Continuous-flow reactors provide an alternative because they stir more softly by their shear-enforced convection in their liquid slugs. As a result, they do not show foaming, and therefore, separation in phases is facile. With that issue solved, we report here for the continuous-flow biocatalytic reaction that we achieved high-level product purification and (three times) recycling of the enzyme.

For the in situ resource utilization (ISRU) of asteroids, the cost–mass conundrum needs to be solved, and technologies may need to be conceptualised from first principals. By using this approach, this Review seeks to illustrate how chemical process intensification can help with the development of disruptive technologies and business matters, how this might influence space‐industry start‐ups, and even industrial transformations on Earth. The disruptive technology considered is continuous microflow solvent extraction and, as another disruptive element therein, the use of ionic liquids. The space business considered is asteroid mining, as it is probably the most challenging resource site, and the focus is on its last step: the purification of adjacent metals (cobalt versus nickel). The key economic barrier is defined as the reduction in the amount of water used in the asteroid mining process. This Review suggests a pathway toward water savings up to the technological limit of the best Earth‐based processes and their physical limits.