9. SEPARATION PROCESS TECHNOLOGIES FOR MANUFACTURING

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 in processes for distillation, adsorption, and dewatering.  Also sought are innovative separation processes that are applicable to biomass slurries.  Grant applications must address the potential public benefits that the proposed technology would provide from reduced energy consumption and from the reduction of materials consumption, water consumption, and/or the dispersion of toxins and pollutants.  Grant applications should also 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. 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 payback 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 are also important.  Approaches must demonstrate an attractive cost, maintain (or enhance) 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.

Questions - contact Charles Russomanno (charles.russomanno@hq.doe.gov) 

b. Adsorption—Adsorption uses special solids (called adsorbents) to remove substances from gaseous or liquid mixtures.  Adsorption is effective for purifications, e.g. taking a contaminant ranging from 1 ppb to 1000 ppm out of a stream of gas or liquid.  In addition, adsorption is good for bulk separations, e.g. taking 1 to 50% of a component out of a stream of gas, or maybe 1 to 10% out of a liquid.  Adsorption is also used for the recovery of certain constituents (e.g., solvents from air), preventing pollution, separating impurities from natural gas, petrochemical separations, hydrogen purification, recovery and reuse of sulfur dioxide for metalcasting, and so on.  Advances in, and the expanded use of, adsorption have resulted in substantial energy, environmental, and economic benefits in a number of industrial settings.  One prominent example is in refineries and petrochemical plants, where pressure swing adsorption (PSA) has replaced cryogenic distillation as the most economical method for separating hydrogen from various compounds; by replacing cryogenic distillation with PSA, refineries and petrochemical plants have been able to reduce costs by anywhere from 60% to 90%.

Grant applications are sought in adsorbent and adsorption process development.  The new adsorbents must have high capacity, rapid adsorption-desorption kinetics, improved selectivity, and operational stability at elevated temperatures in the presence of steam and other reaction components.  The new adsorption processes must then take advantage of these new materials.  Grant applications must address at least one of the following priorities:  (1) development of high capacity CO2 and CO selective adsorbents that can operate in the presence of hydrogen and steam at elevated temperatures (working capacities in the range of 3-4 mol/kg are of particular interest), along with the development of new Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) or Temperature Swing Adsorption (TSA) cycle designs (possibly a PSA/TSA hybrid cycle design), at either ambient or elevated temperatures, that take advantage of these new adsorbents; (2) development of advanced structured adsorbent materials for use in rapid-cycle PSA, and further development of the design of rapid-cycle PSA; (3) development of novel PSA hybrid separation systems, e.g. with a structurally integrated permeable membrane;  (4) CO2 removal via TSA – development of TSA and/or PSA/TSA hybrid cycles with improved materials for use in H2 separation technology and other applications; (5) improved hydrogen separations with Sorption Enhanced Reaction Processes (SERP), using a thermal swing regeneration and new materials –  novel approaches, such as incorporating a high temperature reversible metal hydride as a H2 selective adsorbent in a SERP to drive the equilibrium, should be considered; and (6) CO selective adsorbents.

Questions - contact Charles Russomanno (charles.russomanno@hq.doe.gov) 

c. Advanced Dewatering—The separation of water from a feedstock, product, or by-product stream is a common, often energy-intensive function in many industrial manufacturing processes.  For example, dewatering processes in the pulp and paper industry, including paper forming and market pulp production, consume on the order of 4 -5 MMBtu/ton of product.  Thermal dewatering techniques, while more effective than mechanical techniques for some systems (e.g., where there is a high solids content), require excessive space and capital in addition to consuming large quantities of energy.

Dewatering applications are also found in a variety of other industries including food processing, petroleum processing, agriculture, chemicals, and mining.  The dewatering of citrus pulp and other food slurries is highly energy-intensive, as are many food drying processes and the dewatering of food crops and agricultural waste products.  Applications in the chemical processing industries include dewatering of industrial sludges and chemical intermediates, as well as the dewatering required for oil/water separations and many other solid/liquid separations.  In the mining industry, dewatering helps recover valuable minerals from ores, improve materials handling, process coal slurries, and reduce the amount of fine material entering waste streams.  Novel dewatering techniques could also improve the ability to recover the iron contained in steelmaking sludges.   

Grant applications are sought for breakthrough dewatering technologies that can dramatically lower energy consumption, improve energy intensity, and reduce the capital cost of equipment.  In addition to improving many different processes within the manufacturing sector, advanced dewatering technologies also could provide benefits to the municipal wastewater and power production markets.

Questions - contact Charles Russomanno (charles.russomanno@hq.doe.gov)

d. Recycling Automotive and Truck Materials—Innovative, lightweight materials are playing a key role in helping to improve vehicle fuel economy and safety.  However, these materials can also present special challenges to recycling.  Grant applications are sought to develop technology for the sustainable recycling of current and future automotive and truck materials.  Grant applications must identify a specific issue and/or antici pate d problem area(s) associated with the ability to recycle the material, and then outline a technical solution or approach for resolving the identified issue.  Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, technologies for:  (1) the separation and recovery of specific constituents from automotive materials (including shredder residue) that might otherwise be landfilled at end-of-life (e.g., improvements in mechanical separation technologies, development of advanced separation technologies such as high-speed materials identification and sorting, and the development of bulk physical separation processes including density and gravity separation, froth flotation, and electro-static processing); (2) the effective utilization and/or conversion of specific materials (or fractions of materials from shredder residue such as fines, polymer concentrates, etc.), which might otherwise be landfilled, to valued-added recycled products; (3) thermo-chemical conversion (e.g. pyrolysis, hydrolysis, gasification) of polymeric and other organic based automotive materials to saleable chemicals and fuels; and (4) the removal and control of residual contamination (by such substances as PCBs, PBDEs, and heavy metals) from materials recovered from shredder residue.

Questions - contact Charles Russomanno (charles.russomanno@hq.doe.gov) 

References:

1.      Humphrey, J. L. and Keller, G. E., II, “Separation Process Technology,” McGraw-Hill, 1997.  (ISBN:  0-07-031173-0)

2.      “Vision 2020:  2000 Separations Roadmap,” New York:  AIChE, Center for Waste Reduction Technologies, 2000.  (ISBN:  0-8169-0832-X) (Full text available at http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/chemicals/pdfs/separations_roadmap.pdf)

3.      “Vision 2020:  Reaction Engineering Roadmap,” New York:  AIChE, Center for Waste Reduction Technologies, 2001.  (Full text available at http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/chemicals/pdfs/reaction_roadmap.pdf)

4.      “Vision 2020:  Workshop Report on Alternative Media, Conditions, and Raw Materials,” July 1999.  (Full text available at:  http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/chemicals/pdfs/alternative_roadmap.pdf)

5.      “Biobased Industrial Products:  Research and Commercialization Priorities,” National Research Council Commission on Life Sciences, 2000.  (Full text available at:  http://newton.nap.edu/catalog/5295.html)

6.      “Vision for Bioenergy and Biobased Products in the United States,” U.S. Biomass Research and Development Advisory Committee, October 2002.  (Full text available at:  http://www.climatevision.gov/sectors/electricpower/pdfs/bioenergy_vision.pdf)

7.      “Roadmap for Biomass Technologies in the United States,” U.S. Biomass Research and Development Advisory Committee, December 2002.  (Full text available at:  http://www.biomass.govtools.us/pdfs/FinalBiomassRoadmap.pdf)

8.      “Developing and Promoting Biobased Products and Bioenergy:  Report to the President of the United States in Response to Executive Order 13134,” U.S. DOE and U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 14, 2000.  (Full text available at:  http://www.biomass.govtools.us/existsite/pdfs/presidentsreport.pdf)

9.      “Vision2020 Technology Partnership Separations R&D Priorities for the Chemical Industry,” 2005.  (Full text available by email request.  Contact Charles Russomanno at Charles.Russomanno@hq.doe.gov)

 

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