Recent Patents on Chemical Engineering - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2012

This issue of Recent Patents on Chemical Engineering contains six reviews, one research paper and selected patents related to materials, instruments and applied technologies in chemical, biological and environmental engineering. It provides the readers with an overall review of the recent patents of the subject area. Recent U.S. inventions related to methane dehydroaromatization processes for production of hydrogen and aromatics were summarized by Lucia M. Petkovic and Daniel M. Ginosar. Patents on particulate measurement systems with emphasis on the instruments were reviewed by Kaushik K. Shandilya and Ashok Kumar. Base on the recent patents on natural zeolites Reyad A. Al Dwairi and Aiman E. Al-Rawajfeh described their applications in water treatment process, agricultural and pharmaceutical industry. A review on synthesis and applications of catalytic coatings especially on the channel walls in micropores were presented by L.N. Protasova and co-workers. Paper from W.K.R. Wong and co-workers focused on extracellular production of heterologous proteins using bacterial systems such as Escherichia coli for commercial applications. Gold-based materials for catalytic oxidation and detection of dioxin emissions from incinerators at lower temperatures were overviewed by Miguel Peixoto de Almeida and Sónia A.C. Carabineiro. The last paper reported the optimum reaction conditions of the extraction of jojoba oil using subcritical water technology by Wael Abdelmoez and co-workers. I thank all the authors for their efforts to make their papers of the high quality. I wish to thank the reviewers for their help in the paper improvements and final decisions. I am thankful to editorial manager Ms. Mehwish Akhter for her constant guidance and assistance. Finally, I hope that the journal will achieve the first Impact Factor in the near future and continue increasing the readership.

Since the year 2000, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a dozen patents for inventions related to methane dehydroaromatization processes. One of them was granted to UOP LLC (Des Plaines). It relates to a catalyst composition and preparation method. Two patents were granted to Conoco Phillips Company (Houston, TX). One was aimed at securing a process and operating conditions for methane aromatization. The other was aimed at securing a process that may be integrated with separation of wellhead fluids and blending of the aromatics produced from the gas with the crude. Nine patents were granted to ExxonMobil Chemical Patents Inc. (Houston, TX). Most of these were aimed at securing a dehydroaromatization process where methane-containing feedstock moves counter currently to a particulate catalyst. The coked catalyst is heated or regenerated either in the reactor, by cyclic operation, or in annex equipment, and returned to the reactor. The reactor effluent stream may be separated in its main components and used or recycled as needed. A brief summary of those inventions is presented in this review.

The purpose of this paper is to review particulate measurement systems based on the technologies available from the online database maintained by the United States Patents and Trademark Office. The most significant patents are evaluated based on key features and principles such as gravimetric, optical, and electrostatics. It was found that scientists are constantly improving the instruments using different physical characteristics related to the exhaust. The paper identifies knowledge gaps that could be used to develop new inventions.

The zeolites are a popular group of minerals known as hydrous aluminumsilicate. More than forty naturally occurring zeolites were reported by different research groups and more than 150 zeolites have been synthesized. They have been increasingly used in various application areas such as industry, agriculture, and environmental protection. This research paper reviews the recent patents of using zeolites in environment, agriculture and pharmaceuticals. Agriculture has more concern in the last ten years in the world, so zeolites can be used as agricultural and horticultural fungicide and as soil amendment. The use of zeolites in water treatment is an important environmental application. The first application in water purification by adding zeolite crystalloid coagulant (“ZCC”) to water that contains particulate matter that has multivalent ions adsorbed on the surfaces thereof. Other application is a process for the treatment of contaminated water based on the use of zeolites having different characteristics. Utilization of zeolites for treatment of contaminated water under different conditions in environmental applications is also discussed. The review also carries the recent patents available in water treatment process, agricultural and pharmaceutical industry.

A review of patent publications on preparation, deposition, characterization, and application of the catalytic coatings is given in this paper with view on their application in microstructured reactors for heterogeneous gas-phase processing. The paper consists of two main parts: in the first part the total overview of patents, the distribution by countries and patent applicants is shown. The main topics (coatings preparation, application, removal etc.) are discussed in the second part of the review, including description of some selected patent publications. The aim of the present review is to show the ‘hot’ topics of patent publications on catalytic coatings and the main interests of the big patentees; special attention is given to catalytic coatings on the channel walls in microstructured reactors.

Extracellular production of recombinant proteins using bacterial systems such as Escherichia coli has many advantages, including preferred protein properties, e.g. N-terminal authenticity, correct disulfide linkages, high product bioactivity and stability, and simplified downstream processing. This approach offers an impressive choice to the expression of naturally secretory proteins of which posttranslational modifications are non-essential for biological functions. In this communication, we review recent advances and patents obtained in excretory production of recombinant proteins in E. coli, making use of human epidermal growth factor (hEGF) as a model protein to illustrate how this approach has facilitated efficient production of hEGF. This enables affordable supply for an elaborate assessment of the biological functions of hEGF and subsequently its application to the development of a wide range of skincare and medically-oriented products for commercial applications.

The control of dioxin emissions from incinerators is an environmental and safety concern. Catalytic oxidation at lower temperatures is a better alternative to thermal (uncatalysed) decomposition. Since gold is stable in the presence of halogens, multi-component catalysts containing this metal might be active and stable candidates for oxidative decomposition of this kind of compounds at low temperatures. This is shown by the number of patents and papers dealing with gold for this matter. This paper presents a brief overview concerning the work carried out so far on this important subject. The efficiency of gold, along with that of other metal catalysts like Pt and Ir, on different oxide supports (like TiO2, Fe2O3, SnO2, La2O3, etc), for processing dioxins at very low temperatures, is referred. Gold can also have an important role in dioxin detection, therefore gold based sensors are also mentioned.

This study presents the extraction of jojoba oil using subcritical water technology. The effect of extraction parameters covering a temperature range of 180-240°C, using seeds with mean particle size ranging from 12 mm to less than 0.5 mm, water to seed ratios of 0.5:1, 1:1, 2:1, and 3:1, and extraction times in the range of 10-50 min was investigated. Moreover, the kinetic as well as the thermodynamic of the extraction process were investigated. The obtained results revealed that the increase in both temperature and the time of extraction while a decrease in particle size generally improved the yield of extraction up to certain limits. The results showed that the optimum extraction conditions were 240°C, 30 minutes, 2:1 water to seed ratio, and 3 mm particle size which gave a maximum extraction yield of 94%. The reaction kinetics could be correlated well with an irreversible consecutive unimolecular-type first order. The apparent activation energy was evaluated to be 82.5 kJ.mol-1. The present work has been filed as a patent with filing number of 2011/2103 (Egyptian Patent Office).

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by medical imaging, bioinformatics, image processing, biomaterials, Pharmaceutical drugs, bioengineering, medical devices, design, biological devices, biomechanics & diagnostic devices related to biomedical engineering.