30. REACTIONS AND SEPARATIONS
Advances in oxidation catalysis and separation process technologies can increase energy efficiencies in a variety of industries. In the petroleum and petrochemicals industries, oxidation catalysis is a leading technology for chemical synthesis, with great potential for improved feed stock efficiencies, environmental impact, and energy savings. New developments in oxidation catalysis also would be likely to influence catalytic developments for many other commercial catalytic transformations. The Department of Energy supports R&D in oxidation catalytic technology to overcome current limitations of selectivity and efficiency, leading to substantial energy savings, improved economic performance, enhanced utilization of feedstocks, and reduced requirements for materials of construction.
Separation technologies recover, isolate, and purify products in virtually every industrial process. Pervasive throughout industrial operations, conventional separation processes are energy intensive and costly. Separation processes represent 40 to 70 percent of both capital and operating costs in industry. They also account for 45 percent of all the process energy used by the chemical and petroleum refining industries every year. Industrial efforts to increase cost-competitiveness, boost energy efficiency, increase productivity, and prevent pollution, demand more efficient separation processes. In response to these needs, the Department of Energy is seeking the development of high-risk, innovative separation technologies applicable to the exploration and use of geothermal energy as a heat and power resource, the conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals, the petroleum refining and petrochemicals industries, and the mining industry.
Grant applications must address the potential public benefits that the proposed technology would provide from reduced energy consumption and from the reduction in one or more of the following: materials consumption, water consumption, and toxic and pollutants dispersion. Grant applications also should include a plan for introducing the new technology into the manufacturing sector, in order to access capabilities for widespread technology dissemination. Grant applications are sought only in the following subtopics:
a. Catalytic Oxidation—All industrial syntheses of oxygenated compounds from hydrocarbons involve the cracking of paraffins to olefins and the subsequent direct or indirect addition of oxygen. The direct addition of oxygen to olefins is exothermic, and, therefore, energy savings can result from saving hydrocarbon feedstock through increased selectivity. Indeed, the enhancement of oxidation selectivity represents the largest potential improvement of energy efficiency in the chemical industry (Parshall, 1994). Grant applications are sought for the research and development of technologies for improving the efficiency of industrial catalytic oxidations. Areas of particular interest are: (1) selective oxidation of petroleum feedstocks for commodity chemicals, thereby enhancing efficiency by reducing over-oxidation; (2) alkane activation for direct oxidation with molecular oxygen, e.g., methane to methanol; (3) heat integration of catalytic oxidations with other processes; and (4) improvements in the syntheses or use of reactive intermediates. Item (4) above could involve the use of peroxides; the in situ generation and consumption of reactive intermediates to achieve steady state benign operations, e.g., phosgene; or the full replacement of these intermediates, e.g. phosgene, HCN, chorine, etc.
b. Distillation—Significant quantities of inorganic acids, and all commodity organic chemicals, are purified by distillation at some stage in their manufacture. Distillation accounts for more than 60% of the total process energy used for the manufacture of commodity chemicals and is therefore a meaningful target for improvements in energy efficiency. Grant applications are sought to develop new technologies for significantly enhancing the energy efficiency of existing distillation systems used in the U.S. for the manufacture of any major commodity chemical, both inorganic and organic. Areas of interest include: (1) systems integration in commodity chemical manufacture that could be implemented at an attractive cost and reduces currently needed distillation capacity; (2) hybridization of distillation with other more efficient means of separation such as membranes – but before developing this approach, the history of commercial attempts to introduce efficient hybrid distillation systems should be carefully reviewed; (3) design and development of new column externals, such as the reboiler and the condenser, provided that the technology can be demonstrated at an acceptable cost and pay back period; and (4) processes that take advantage of the excess reactive distillation capacity that may result from regulations on oxygenated fuel additives in the chemical industry, provided that the new processes enhance energy efficiency over the processes replaced.
Grant applications should include a review of the state of the art of the targeted distillation application in the U.S., including a review of its current inefficiencies, in order to provide a sound technical basis for the efficiency gains to be expected from the technology development effort. Strategies to overcome the inefficiencies should be identified and practical means to address them developed. The number of distillation units in the U.S. that could apply the new technology should be identified, along with the energy savings that could be derived by reasonable market penetration. The cost of applying the new technology and the ease of implementation also are important: approaches must demonstrate an attractive cost, maintain (or enhancing) system reliability and safety, be capable of retrofit at attractive cost, and meet or exceed the performance characteristics demanded of distillation systems. Incremental improvements to existing distillation technologies are not of interest, nor is technology that is not broadly applicable to distillation as applied today in commodity chemical manufacture.
c. Biomass Separation Process Technologies—Process streams resulting from the primary fractionation/saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass are typically highly complex slurries that are difficult to process and separate. Such slurries often contain substantial levels (10-20% w/w) of insoluble lignocellulosic solids as well as high concentrations of soluble biomass sugars (>10-20%) along with a variety of other soluble components (organic and inorganic acids, aldehydes, phenolics, etc.) that are typically present at lower levels. Advanced separation process technologies, which would enable more cost effective solid/liquid (S/L) separations of such slurries, are needed for bulk or primary S/L separations, as well as for secondary/polishing S/L separations. Therefore, grant applications are sought to develop: (1) improved upstream fractionation, to recover products and/or facilitate bio/catalysis and to reduce the cost of downstream recovery and purification; (2) advanced concepts such as reactive separations schemes that will enable in situ combination with bio/catalysis steps, or approaches that are substantially more energy efficient and/or require much less capital equipment; (3) techniques to remove smaller suspended particles or high molecular weight compounds from partially clarified liquors, in advance of further purification by chromatography or concentration and/or purification by evaporation and/or crystallization; and (4) efficient membrane separation systems that enable more economic and efficient separation and recovery of specific components (e.g., specific sugars or organic acids) or classes of components (e.g., mixed sugars or mixed phenolics) from clarified biomass hydrolyzate liquors. Progress in these areas will reduce the need for bio/catalysts to tolerate impurities and interfering components, and will help reduce the cost of producing fuels and chemicals from biomass processing streams.
d. Innovative Mineral Processing—Americans currently use 3.5 million pounds of minerals, metals, and fuels per capita in the course of a lifetime (Mining Journal Ltd., Mining Annual Review 1999). To reduce the energy consumption and environmental impacts associated with producing those materials, existing processes must be improved, and new ones must be developed. As used here, the term ‘process’ refers to methods used to clean, separate, prepare, and recover minerals from mined ores and from geothermal brines. Mineral preparation, physical separation, and chemical separations are key technology areas in need of research to achieve energy and productivity savings in the next twenty years. The greatest potential improvements are associated with the optimization of combined processes and the resulting synergies. For example, combining beneficiation, dewatering, and agglomeration into a single process would reduce flow sheet complexity and materials handling. Recovering minerals from geothermal brines, produced primarily for electric power generation, could enhance the economics of both power generation and mineral production.
Grant applications are sought to develop chemical separation process technologies that would reduce or eliminate processing steps in the mining industry, leading to improvements in overall efficiency. Specific areas of research interest include improved reaction kinetics and heat efficiency, and increased direct conversion and in situ recovery. Typical processes of interest include pelletizing or briquetting, smelting, refining, leaching, solvent extraction, bioleaching and electro winning.
Grant applications also are sought to develop mineral recovery technology from geothermal electricity generation facilities. In particular, small prototype systems for the commercial production of silica, manganese, hydrogen or other materials (other than zinc and carbon dioxide) associated with geothermal fluids are desired. The cost and quality of the produced materials and a market for them must be clearly defined.
Grant applications are not sought for improving process
efficiencies primarily through emissions controls or through waste disposal,
remediation, or treatment. However, this limitation does not apply to
approaches that target materials recycling or by-product utilization as their
primary focus.
References:
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