I-Corps: Reclaiming, separating, recycling, and repurposing fluorocarbon-based refrigerants

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种回收、分离、回收和重新利用氢氟碳化物(HFC)制冷剂的技术。今天，只有一小部分制冷剂被回收重复使用。大多数氟化制冷剂具有很高的全球变暖潜力；按重量计算，它们在加剧全球变暖方面比二氧化碳强几个数量级。制冷剂行业试图在经济上可行的情况下回收尽可能多的氢氟碳化物以供重复使用，但他们面临着一系列无法分离的制冷剂混合物的挑战。其结果是，美国每年回收的制冷剂不到10%，必须更换数百万公斤的氢氟碳化物。这项拟议的技术旨在分离氢氟碳化物(HFC)制冷剂混合物，以便组件可以回收利用。市场潜力超过10亿美元，而防止氢氟碳化合物的排放相当于在一年内消除超过1.75亿吨二氧化碳(或5000万辆汽车的排放)。这个i-Corps项目的基础是开发高能效的工艺来分离氢氟碳(HFC)混合物，以便这些成分可以被回收并重新用于环境安全的产品。建议的技术是基于离子液体、多孔介质和膜分离HFC制冷剂混合物。材料发现和实验测量的集成策略与过程建模紧密结合。基于气体溶解度的不同，离子液体正在被开发来分离HFC混合物。过程模拟已经被用来设计一个正在建设中的使用离子液体的萃取精馏过程。中试规模的萃取蒸馏将提供压力/温度可变吸附系统和中空纤维膜分离模块的概念验证演示。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 I-Corps project is the development of a technology for reclaiming, separating, recycling, and repurposing hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants. Today, only a small fraction of refrigerants are reclaimed for re-use. Most fluorinated refrigerants have high global warming potential; By weight, they are orders of magnitude more potent than carbon dioxide in increasing global warming. The refrigerant industry tries to recover as much HFC as economically practical for re-use but they are challenged by the an array of mixtures of refrigerants that are not possible to separate. The result is that less than 10% of refrigerant is reclaimed and millions of kilograms of HFCs must be replaced in the U.S. annually. The proposed technology is designed to separate hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerant mixtures so components may be recycled. The market potential is valued at over $1 billion while preventing the release of HFCs would be equivalent to removing over 175 million metric tons of carbon dioxde (or emissions from 50 million cars) in one year. This I-Corps project is based on the development of energy-efficient processes to separate hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) mixtures so that the components may be recycled and repurposed into environmentally safe products. The proposed technology is based on ionic liquids, porous media, and membranes for the separation of HFC refrigerant mixtures. The integrated strategy of materials discovery and experimental measurements are tightly coupled with process modeling. Ionic liquids are being developed to separate HFC mixtures based on differences in gas solubility. Process simulations have been used to design an extractive distillation process that is under construction using an ionic liquids. The pilot-scale extractive distillation will provide proof-of-concept demonstration of the pressure/temperature swing adsorption system and a hollow-fiber membrane separation module.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.