SBIR Phase II: Carbon-Ceramic Composite Membranes for Olefin-Paraffin Separations

本小型企业创新研究二期项目拟继续开发具有优异丙烯/丙烷分离性能的碳陶瓷膜。该膜是一种环保且经济可行的膜工艺，可用于分离丙烯和丙烷，用于各种重要的石化和炼油工艺。这些复合膜含有一种新开发的微孔碳材料的薄选择层。材料的刚性结构使膜具有特殊的抗塑化能力。这使得膜在具有挑战性的工业条件下保持高混合气体选择性。在第一阶段工作中获得的混合气体丙烯/丙烷膜的选择性和稳定性远远优于先前在工业相关条件下测试的聚合物和促进运输膜。在第二阶段的工作中，第一阶段开发的膜将进一步优化，然后用于生产用于丙烯/丙烷分离的商业尺寸原型模块。此外，这项研究有望增加对碳陶瓷膜的普遍理解，以及它们在一系列其他化学和热挑战性气体分离中的潜力，这是传统聚合物膜无法实现的。该项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是使用新的碳膜从聚丙烯和丙烯衍生物反应器吹扫流中回收丙烯。考虑到石油化工行业每年生产大量丙烯、聚丙烯和其他丙烯衍生物，该技术具有重要的经济潜力。随着膜基工艺的成功开发和示范，其潜在的更大的应用包括在蒸汽裂解装置上用于单体生产的丙烯/丙烷分离，以及从炼油厂的催化裂化装置废气中回收丙烯。制作陶瓷膜的成本高于聚合物膜，但较低的工艺能量要求所节省的成本将很容易超过增加的膜成本。如果成功，新膜将使膜基烯烃/石蜡分离技术在技术和经济上具有吸引力，可以与蒸馏结合使用或代替蒸馏。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project proposes to continue the development of carbon-ceramic membranes with excellent propylene/propane separation performance. The membranes serve as the enabling technology to be used in an environmentally benign and economically viable membrane process to separate propylene from propane for a variety of important petrochemical and refining processes. These composite membranes contain thin selective layers of a newly-developed microporous carbon material. The rigid structure of the material confers the membranes with exceptional resistance to plasticization. This allows the membranes to retain high mixed-gas selectivities at challenging industrial conditions. The mixed-gas propylene/propane selectivities and stability of the membranes achieved in Phase I work are far superior to those of previously examined polymer and facilitated transport membranes under industrially relevant conditions. In Phase II work, membranes developed in Phase I will be further optimized, and then used to produce prototype commercial-size modules for propylene/propane separations. In addition, this research is expected to increase general understanding of carbon-ceramic membranes and their potential for use in an array of other chemically and thermally challenging gas separations that are not possible with conventional polymeric membranes.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be the use of the new carbon membranes for propylene recovery from polypropylene and propylene derivative reactor purge streams. This technology has important economic potential, considering the large volumes of propylene, polypropylene and other propylene derivatives produced annually in the petrochemical industry. With successful development and demonstration of the membrane-based processes, their potentially much larger applications include propylene/propane separations for monomer production at steam crackers and recovery of propylene from fluid catalytic cracker off-gases in refineries. The cost of making ceramic membranes is higher than that of polymeric membranes, but the savings from lower process energy requirements will easily outweigh the increased membrane costs. If successful, the new membranes will make membrane-based olefin/paraffin separations technically and economically attractive for use in conjunction with, or in place of, distillation.