PFI-TT: Technology Transfer: Robust Hierarchically-Textured Surfaces for Transportation of Heavy Crude Oils

这一创新技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是为运输重质原油和沥青的轨道车和油轮内部设计坚固的表面涂层。化石燃料在满足日益增长的全球能源需求方面继续发挥着关键作用；它们是化工和沥青工业的原料。重质原油和沥青粘度高，导致开采、中游运输和加工作业困难。例如，重质原油和沥青必须使用加热的油罐车、轨道车、卡车和管道运输，这需要巨大的能源支出。航运还需要高成本的稀释，以获得有利于运输的流动特性。此外，清洗这些容器会产生相当大的成本，导致大量无法回收的残留物，并产生安全隐患。拟议的涂层配方将把新型表面化学物质与3D纹理结合起来，以改善重质原油的流动。这些涂料将减少运输过程中的浪费，降低加热成本，减少稀释剂的使用，并减少停机时间。在美国设计和制造用于稠油运输的涂层技术将确保美国在一个对能源安全和经济增长至关重要的领域保持领先地位。该项目可能会产生具有表面化学成分和3D纹理结构的工程涂层，以提高拒油性、附着力、耐腐蚀性和耐热循环能力。虽然大量的努力集中在设计防水的工程表面上，但用于排斥重质原油的表面的选择极其稀少。拟议的创新的独特之处在于它能够排斥未加热的粘性原油，其独特之处在于其在高温下的性能、在规模上的适用性(整个航运集装箱和火车车厢)以及与抑制底层金属腐蚀的化学物质的兼容性。该项目将通过以下方式在技术开发方面推进这一创新：(1)有效地导航材料设计空间，以优化纹理和表面化学；(2)通过化学和机械表征，提供对导致拒油和粘合强度的设计原理的基本理解；(3)通过研究机械故障机理，开发寿命预测模型；以及(4)制造和现场测试沥青容器比例模型原型。拟议项目的一个独特之处是，它强调对物理机制和化学设计原则(而不仅仅是成分的优化)的询问，这可能会给重质原油和沥青的运输和储存带来颠覆性的创新。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is in designing robust surface coatings for the interiors of rail cars and oil tankers that transport heavy crude oil and bitumen. Fossil fuels continue to play a pivotal role in meeting increasing global energy needs; They serve as a feedstock for the chemical and asphalt industries. Heavy crude oil and bitumen are highly viscous, which leads to difficulties in extraction, midstream transportation, and processing operations. For instance, heavy crude oil and bitumen must be shipped using heated tankers, railcars, trucks, and pipelines, which requires enormous energy expenditures. Shipping also requires high-cost dilution to obtain flow properties that are conducive to transportation. Furthermore, cleaning these vessels incurs considerable cost, results in substantial unrecovered residues, and engenders safety hazards. The proposed coating formulations will merge novel surface chemistries with 3D texturation to improve the flow of heavy crude oil. These coatings will decrease waste during transportation, reduce heating costs, decrease diluent use, and reduce downtime. Designing and manufacturing coating technologies for viscous oil transportation in the United States will ensure that the US maintains leadership in an area critical to energy security and economic growth.This project may result in engineered coatings with surface chemistries and 3D textured structures that promote oil repellency, adhesion strength, corrosion resistance, and robustness to thermal cycling. While extensive efforts have focused on designing engineered surfaces that repel water, options for surfaces that repel heavy crude oils are exceedingly sparse. The proposed innovation is unique in its ability to repel unheated viscous crude oil and distinctive in its performance at high temperature, applicability at scale (entire shipping containers and railcars), and compatibility with chemistries that inhibit corrosion of the underlying metals. This project will advance this innovation in terms of technology development by (1) efficiently navigating the materials design space to optimize texturation and surface chemistries; (2) providing fundamental understanding of design principles that lead to oil repellency and adhesion strength through chemical and mechanical characterization; (3) developing models for lifetime predictions by studying mechanical failure mechanisms; and (4) fabricating and field testing a bitutainer scale model prototype. A distinctive element of the proposed project is its emphasis on interrogation of physical mechanisms and chemical design principles (not just optimization of compositions), which may bring disruptive innovation to the transportation and storage of heavy crude oil and bitumen.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.