The U.S. chemical industry includes producers of industrial gases, large-volume commodity chemicals and polymers, chemical products for agricultural and medicinal uses, and performance-targeted ...

Most industrial chemists spend their days separating the components of large quantities of chemical mixtures into pure or purer forms. The processes involved, such as distillation, account for 10–15% ...

Separating pure ethylene from ethane is a difficult and costly process, but one that new research is poised to streamline. The technique would avoid liquefaction and distillation by designing a ...

For centuries, distillation has been used to separate the components of liquid solutions through extremely selective heating and cooling. Numerous instruments are used to control the differing ...

CORRECTION: This story was updated on Dec. 16, 2015, to correct the description of distillation and to clarify the separation difficulty posed by azeotropes. A new method for heating liquid mixtures ...

Lubricants and oils are used across many different areas of industry, with the most common use being within industrial machines and automotive engines. Lubrication is one of the fundamental aspects of ...

Vegetable oils derived from soybeans, canola, and other seed crops are already widely used for cooking, to make biodiesel fuel, and as solvents for inks and paints. Chemists could do much more with ...