Future Technologies

This article covers important industrial technologies and the direction of future technological development. The description of alkylation chemistry and conventional alkylation technologies covered in the eadier editions of this Eniyclopedia and other references is minimized (1,2) (see also Eriedel-Crafts reactions). 

Future technology developments in paraffin alkylation will be greatly influenced by environmental considerations. The demand for alkylate product will continue to increase because alkylate is one of the most desirable components in modern low emission gasoline formulations. Increased attention will be focused on improving process safety, reducing waste disposal requirements, and limiting the environmental consequences of any process emissions. 

The foregoing demonstrates that modern digital devices offer highly reliable, state-of-die-art microprocessor technology that controls turbomachinery strings, monitors operating data, stores data for subsequent evaluation, communicates to odier systems, and can expand with future technologies. 

Benson and Ponton (1993) and Ponton (1996) have speculated on the ultimate results of continuing efforts for process minimization. They envision a twenty-first century chemical industry totally revolutionized by technological innovation, automation, and miniaturization. Small, distributed manufacturing facilities would produce materials on demand, at the location where they are needed. Raw materials would be nonhazardous, and the manufacturing processes would be waste free and inherently safe. While their vision of future technology is speculative, we are beginning to see progress in this direction. 

De Beer, J. Worrell, E. and Blok, K. (1998). Future Technologies for Energy Efficient Iron and Steel Making. Annual Review of Energy 3nd the Environment 23 123-205. 

Physical realizability is often the most difficult of the above three corollary questions to answer. In general, to answer this question it is necessary to know 1) whether the materials and components required by the engineering design are available and 2) whether the manufacturing (and/or fabrication) techniques and skilled craftsmen needed to fabricate the product are also available. These two assessments are difficult to make because they often involve the projection of future technological developments. Technological developments usually do not occur according to schedule. 

The U.S. electronics industry appears to be ahead of, or on a par with, Japanese industry in most areas of current techniques for the deposition and processing of thin films—chemical vapor deposition (CVD), MOCVD, and MBE. There are differences in some areas, thongh, that may be cracial to future technologies. For example, the Japanese effort in low-pressure microwave plasma research is impressive and surpasses the U.S. effort in some respects. The Japanese are ahead of their U.S. counterparts in the design and manufacture of deposition equipment as well. 

Use of higher-performance polymers may suppress the demand for FRs in business machines. Flame retardancy has recently been reviewed [39], as well as the technology of halogen-free FR additives [44]. The future technology of polymer flame retardancy has been described [45]. 

In this chapter, we focus on recent and emerging technologies that either are or soon will be applied commercially. Older technologies are discussed to provide historic perspective. Brief discussions of potential future technologies are provided to indicate current development directions. The chapter substantially extends an earlier publication (Davis et al., 1996a) and is divided into seven main sections beyond the introduction Data Analysis, Input Analysis, Input-Output Analysis, Data Interpretation, Symbolic-Symbolic Interpretation, Managing Scale and Scope of Large-Scale Process Operations, and Comprehensive Examples. 

Materials such as polypyrrole are exciting in terms of their future technological impact, not just because of the obvious applications of such a simple, cheap electrochromic but because it may be possible to develop them sufficiently to replace the more expensive, and often toxic, metallic conductors commonly employed in the electronics industry. This may not be such a distant dream since it has been calculated that the intrinsic conductivity of these materials, i.e. without the defects that are currently defeating attempts to increase their conductivity of c, < lOOOfl 1 cm", may be many times that of copper. 

The objective of this chapter is to review the advance in these fibers and refer to the prospect for the future technology of inorganic fibers. 

Smith, R., and Asaro, M. 2005. Fuels of the future. Technology intelligence for gas to liquids strategies. Menlo Park SRI. 

Everyone who is involved with the potential of modern techniques is surely fascinated by the unbelievable developments that have taken place in this particular sector within the last 100 years. Knowledge, abilities and the possibilities for mankind as a whole, and specifically the individual, have also seen dramatic evolutionary changes over the last few decades and reached a level our ancestors would never have even dreamed of. So from the present point of view, it is only a question of time before our future technology will be that which today s science fiction authors are writing about. 

To summarize, one can note that the magnetic characteristics of small clusters of the transition metals vary in a nonmonotonous way as a function of the number of atoms in the cluster. This nonscalable behavior is what makes small clusters interesting and complex at the same time, offering possibilities for future technological applications. 

Different stakeholders have been interviewed about future technology developments. Over 20 industry partners have been interviewed and given input to assemble a technology picture of the future hydrogen technologies (e.g., for hydrogen pipelines, stacks or electrolysers). 

Natural attenuation should not be perceived as a permanent remedy or as a means to achieve certain cleanup levels, but rather as (1) an interim measure until future technologies are developed, (2) a managerial tool for reducing site risks, and (3) a bridge from active engineering (i.e., pump-and-treat, vapor extraction, etc.) to no further action. 

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