SBIR Phase I: Novel Zeolite Membranes for Olefin/Paraffin Separation

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目建议开发一种用于烯烃/烷烃分离的高渗透性无机膜。与聚合物膜和其他无机膜相比，沸石膜具有许多优点，包括更高的化学和机械稳定性、更高的选择性和渗透率以及更长的使用寿命。该项目旨在开发、示范和商业化一种坚固、经济高效、高渗透性和高选择性、优异的水热和化学稳定性的烯烃/烷烃膜分离技术。这种新型改性沸石膜的分子筛和易运性将被更有效地用于从蒸汽裂化装置的下游分离烯烃/石蜡混合物。这项技术是替代目前高能密集型冷冻蒸馏工艺的一种有吸引力的替代工艺。该项目的广泛影响/商业潜力将通过大幅节省石化行业的烯烃/烷烃分离能源支出来实现，与目前的能源密集型分离工艺相比，可显著节省资本成本。由于美国的乙烯年产量超过2500万吨，丙烯年产量超过1600万吨，乙烯和丙烯是最常生产的低碳烯烃。据估计，美国目前用于分离乙烯/乙烷和丙烯/丙烷混合物的蒸馏过程每年消耗的能源超过120万亿Btu。即使对这些分离进行微小的改进，也可以节省大量的能源和成本。另一方面，世界范围内对环境保护和能源安全的日益关注，一直要求以高效、经济的方式生产乙烯和丙烯等商品化学品。膜分离技术被认为是实现这一目标必须发展的关键技术。因此，开发一种成本效益高的烯烃/烷烃分离技术作为替代目前做法的能源效率明显更高的替代技术，具有强大的商业市场吸引力。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to develop a highly permeable inorganic membrane for olefin/paraffin separation. Zeolite membranes have a number of advantages over polymer membranes and other inorganic membranes, including greater chemical and mechanical stability, higher selectivity and permeance, and longer operation life. The project aims to develop, demonstrate and commercialize a robust, cost-effective, high permeability and selectivity, excellent hydrothermal and chemical stable olefin/paraffin membrane separation technology. The molecular sieving and facilitated transport properties of the novel modified zeolite membrane will be used more efficiently to separate olefin/paraffin mixtures from the down-streams of steam cracker. This technology is an attractive alternative to replace current high energy intensive cryo-distillation process. The broad impact/commercial potential of this project will be realized by enabling a substantial saving in energy expenditure in olefin/paraffin separations in the petrochemical industry with significant capital cost savings compared to current energy intensive separation processes. With yearly production in the US exceeding 25 million tons for ethylene and 16 million tons for propylene, respectively, ethylene and propylene are the most commonly produced light olefins. It is estimated that over 120 trillion Btu of energy per year is consumed by the current distillation processes for the separation of ethylene/ethane and propylene/propane mixtures in the United States. Even small improvements in these separations could results in significant energy and cost savings. On the other hand, increasing worldwide concerns about the environment protection, and energy security has been demanding the production of commodity chemicals such as ethylene and propylene in an efficient and economical way. Membrane separation technology has been considered as the critical technology that must be developed in order to realize this goal. Therefore, there is strong commercial market pull for developing a cost-effective olefin/paraffin separation technology as a significantly more energy efficient alternative to current practice.