Fall in love with the February issue of The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering (CJCE). This month’s exciting Issue Highlights cover a range of chemical engineering topics, from environmentally-friendly engineering to safety in engineering processes. The Editor’s Choice article for February is “An investigation of drum granulation of post-pyrolysis washed biochar.” The article reports that “washing with a Triton and hydrogen peroxide solution reduced the hydrophobicity of biochar,” which resulted in larger, denser granules that “were stronger to minimize attrition, breakage, and other losses when applied as a soil amendment. This research illustrates that biochar properties can be tailored to allow effective specific applications, which increases the value of biochar.” Check out this green, open access article today, available for anyone to read, share, or download.

The next highlight of February is a continuation of our ongoing special series “Conversations in Chemical Engineering.” This month we feature “Mass transfer in emulsion polymerization: An experimental and modelling study” on fluoropolymers. “Fluoropolymers like polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are a class of very stable, very useful materials, particularly for applications such as binders and separator coatings for Li-ion batteries.” However, “vinylidene fluoride must be polymerized at pressures from 30 to 100 bar. Under these conditions, vinylidene fluoride is supercritical.” This article explains that “it is necessary to modify standard models of emulsion polymerization to account for the intensity of mixing via a gas-liquid mass transfer model.” Learn more by reading the article in full, free to read for the month of February.

In another installment of a special series, February also highlights “Probabilistic assessment of the safety profile of the Fischer–Tropsch process with a supercritical solvent,” as part of the “Process Safety” series. This article presents “an inherent process safety assessment developed under a probabilistic Monte Carlo-based formulation.” “The results show how safety metrics are affected when uncertainty is explicitly considered at the design stage, offering a more nuanced assessment of the inherent process safety profile.” Access this article for free during the month of February.

February’s final highlight is another green article, “A review of Znln2S4-based photocatalysts for producing hydrogen by water splitting under visible light: Fundamentals and recent advancements.” Also free to read for the month of February, the review article “initially describes the working principles of water splitting methods, including the fundamentals, fabrication techniques, and thermodynamics of ZnIn2S4 photocatalysts. Later, recent advancements in ZnIn2S4-based photocatalysts are also discussed, especially in the large-scale design of photocatalytic reactors. Finally, modification strategies for the catalyst, as well as future research directions, are also emphasized.”  Check out this thorough summary and analysis in the important field of H2 as a clean energy carrier, today.