Scientists Develop Cheap Filter That Could Slash Oil Refining Energy Use by 32%

Scientists have made a surprising discovery that could slash the amount of energy used in oil refining by eliminating part of the high-temperature heating process required to separate the fractions of crude oil.The scientific breakthrough has found a simple and inexpensive way to separate crude oil molecules through a polymer membrane, radically different from previous attempts to fractionate crude oil via membranes.In previous studies of membrane-based fractionations, scientists believed a selective layer should be coated onto the surface to help separate molecules.But these additional-layer membranes are expensive to make and potentially defective when produced at scale.So the researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Georgia Institute of Technology took a radically different approach. Instead of relying on an ultra-thin specialized coating, they passed crude oil directly through a bare porous polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membrane. This membrane is a chemically stable and inexpensive polymer commonly used as a support material in industrial membranes.When the scientists had crude oil pass through the membrane, at room temperature, the membrane turned into a kind of clogged filter as heavy hydrocarbons selectively stuck to the pore walls. The accumulation of heavy hydrocarbons gradually narrowed the pores and created separation channels smaller than 2 nanometers, according to the study published in Nature this year.The researchers showed that the bare PAN membrane delivered crude oil permeation rates approximately 23 times higher than those of previously reported state-of-the-art crude oil membranes while maintaining stable performance for 28 consecutive days.“One of the key challenges facing membrane systems for crude oil separation was the low productivities of the membrane units – the PAN membranes with their surprising separation mechanism – dramatically increase the productivity of the membrane unit, to the point where industry should seriously consider adopting the technology,” said Professor Ryan Lively from Georgia Tech.The new technology can be adopted by refineries with simple retrofits by adding a modular filtration unit that would not require massive investments, the researchers say.These inexpensive membranes could materially lower the energy use and emissions from refining operations. The so-called “clogged filters” cannot replace distillation proper, but can be used at an early stage to separate fractions without the need to heat crude oil above 350 °C (662 F) from the very beginning, thus avoiding part of the energy use and emissions in the refining process.Process simulations in the study showed that using the membrane as a pretreatment step before conventional distillation could reduce energy consumption by 31.6%, carbon dioxide emissions by 37.6%, cooling water usage by 20.7%, and operating costs by 36%.The membrane could also be applied in other chemical separation processes in the petrochemicals and waste plastics recycling industries, according to the scientists. “Our goal is to precisely control this spontaneous pore-constriction phenomenon and develop it into a membrane platform applicable to the entire refining process,” said Dr. Jihoon Choi and Dr. Hyeokjun Seo of KAIST, the study’s co-first authors.“We also aim to expand the technology to plastic recycling, biofuel purification, and other sustainable chemical processes that support carbon neutrality.”This research is not the first time scientists have developed membranes that could reduce energy use in oil refining.For example, engineers at MIT last year said they had developed a new approach to crude oil fractionation that could slash the amount of energy needed for processing the crude into different fuels by as much as 90% in a breakthrough that could revolutionize fuel production.In a study published in the journal Science, the team at MIT revealed that it had developed a new filtration membrane that can efficiently separate heavy and light components from oil. The membrane is resistant to the swelling that tends to occur with other types of oil separation membranes.MIT engineers modified polymers that have been used in water desalination by changing the bonds and introducing monomers.“The key innovation is that the filters we developed can separate very small molecules at an atomistic length scale,” said Zachary P. Smith, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study.By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.comMore Top Reads From Oilprice.comONGC Moves to Take Over Venezuelan Oilfields, Recover $500 MillionIEA Backs Electrification Efforts at COP31 Climate SummitOil Sinks to $94 as Iran’s $8 Billion Hormuz Deal Heads to Trump