I-Corps: Solid-state sorbents for olefin-paraffin separations

I-Corps：用于烯烃-石蜡分离的固态吸附剂

• 批准号: 1660574
• 负责人: Richard Noble
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-11-01 至 2018-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1660574&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Solid; state; sorbents; olefin

The broader impacts/commercial potential of this I-corps project is derived from significantly lowering the energy required to separate olefin and paraffin gases. This technology could find application in purifying raw olefin products by supplementing or replacing the existing distillation process. Implementation to this application would reduce global energy consumption by approximately 0.3%, equating to economic savings of billions of dollars and environmental savings associated with reduced electricity demand from polluting power sources. This technology could also be used to recover olefins from the waste streams of polymer and specialty chemical production. Implementation here would reduce overall production costs and the burning of the 'waste' olefins, with associated economic and environmental effects and broader impacts such as making high-quality polymer and specialty chemical products more widely available to consumers. This technology could also find application in the separation of specialty di-olefin feedstocks, reducing the production costs of these di-olefins and related products, with flow on benefits of increasing the accessibility of industry and academia to innovating and diversifying the range of specialty polymer products, increasing consumer choice and quality of life.This I-Corps project is to investigate the commercialization potential of solid-state sorbents for separating olefin and paraffin gases. Previously, a new strategy was developed for designing olefin sorbents. Proof-of-concept investigations of these materials showed that they could achieve olefin/paraffin selectivities of approximately 600:1, making them the most selective known solid-state materials for this separation by an order of magnitude. These materials operate under dry conditions and are resistant to acetylene fouling. These properties overcome key limitations of previously investigated technologies which require water (which greatly increases the complexity of the engineering and prevents integration with the existing distillation process), and are contaminated by acetylene (which poisons sorbents and renders the process ineffective for long-term operations). This I-Corps project will identify the best developmental commercialization pathway for this material, and the customers who will be best served by the resulting olefin/paraffin separation system.

I-corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力来自于显著降低分离烯烃和石蜡气体所需的能量。该技术可以补充或替代现有的精馏工艺，用于烯烃原料的提纯。实施这一应用程序将使全球能源消耗减少约0.3%，相当于节省数十亿美元的经济开支，并通过减少污染电源的电力需求来节省环境。该技术还可用于从聚合物和特种化学品生产的废液中回收烯烃。在这里实施将降低总体生产成本和“废”烯烃的燃烧，具有相关的经济和环境效应以及更广泛的影响，例如使消费者更广泛地获得高质量的聚合物和特种化学产品。该技术还可以应用于特种二烯烃原料的分离，降低这些二烯烃及其相关产品的生产成本，并增加工业和学术界对特种聚合物产品的创新和多样化的可及性，增加消费者的选择和生活质量。这个I-Corps项目是为了研究分离烯烃和石蜡气体的固态吸附剂的商业化潜力。此前，人们开发了一种设计烯烃吸附剂的新策略。对这些材料的概念验证研究表明，它们可以达到约600:1的烯烃/石蜡选择性，使它们成为已知固体材料中最具选择性的分离材料。这些材料在干燥条件下工作，并耐乙炔污染。这些特性克服了先前研究的技术的关键限制，这些技术需要水（这大大增加了工程的复杂性，并阻碍了与现有蒸馏过程的整合），并且受到乙炔的污染（这会毒害吸附剂并使该过程无法长期运行）。I-Corps项目将确定这种材料的最佳开发商业化途径，以及由此产生的烯烃/石蜡分离系统将为哪些客户提供最佳服务。