GOALI: Membrane Contactor Reactors for Environmental Applications

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0968159TsotsisIntellectual MeritNationwide about ~2.5 MM ft3/min of landfill gas (LFG) is generated. LFG is potentially an important renewable fuel, as it typically contains more than 50% methane (CH4). Unfortunately, today a large fraction of the LFG is flared. The rest is utilized for electric power generation, and for medium BTU gas-type (e.g., use in boilers) applications. One of the major roadblocks to the utilization of LFG is its miscellaneous corrosive contaminants, e.g., halogen and sulfur containing compounds, which necessitate frequent energy producing equipment servicing, and may lead to eventual failure. Worst of all, halogen and sulfur containing contaminants are emitted to the atmosphere, during flaring or energy production, contributing significantly to air pollution, particularly to acid rain. The removal of these contaminants from LFG prior to combustion is a difficult problem, because of their wide range, and their presence at trace amounts. These factors present difficulties for conventional clean-up technologies, which have proven ineffective for LFG clean-up. The PIs plan to develop a novel catalytic oxidation technology appropriate for LFG clean-up, based on the concept of a pore-flow reactor (PoFR) endowed with an oxidation nanocatalyst. Thus economical, environmental, and energy advantages can be realized, if a process is developed that cost-effectively removes the LFG toxic contaminants. The emphasis in this project is on fundamental investigations of the complex reaction and transport processes that occur in such a reactor; a major fundamental scientific advance will be understanding and modeling the catalytic combustion of the complex heteroatom compounds encountered in LFG. It is such better fundamental understanding that will lead to the main technological advances needed for the further technical development of the PoFR concept. The project will be developed with collaboration with industrial partners M&P and GCE. M&P is an inorganic membrane manufacturer dedicated to the development and application of these novel materials. GCE is an Engineering Company specializing in LFG collection and utilization. Broader ImpactsThis research project will provide educational experiences and training for the graduate and undergraduate students as they will prepare and characterize novel new materials and learn a host of state-of-the-art computational and experimental techniques. The project will also provide the graduate and undergraduate students with the opportunity to interact with industrial researchers. The urban setting of USC affords the opportunity to work with a variety of 2-4 year colleges in the area, several of which are predominantly minority Institutions. The PIs plan to recruit qualified undergraduates as summer interns, and potentially as incoming graduate students. They plan to disseminate the results of our work through peer reviewed publications, presentations at technical meetings, and by making all reports available on the Web. They will also take advantage of the ever-evolving undergraduate curriculum program at USC, which emphasizes vertically- and horizontally-integrated degree projects consisting of emphasis-specific experimental/laboratory modules associated with each core Chemical Engineering course. The PIs envision integrating research findings and aspects of their work as the degree projects in the Reactor Analysis, Transport Phenomena, and Separation courses. This catalytic reactor technology will cost-effectively remove the toxic contaminants from LFG, offer significant economical, environmental, and energy advantages, and will allow LFG (and biogas in general) to gain its full potential as a valuable renewable fuel. In addition to focusing attention on an important novel reactor concept, this project will also generate fundamental insight, which will impact the knowledge-base of the broader field of transport and reaction in nanoporous media, and is likely to catalyze new thinking and rapid new advances in the area.This project is being supported by the Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems Division (CBET) and the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP).