*Microporous crystalline molecular sieve membranes for olefin/paraffin separation

Moises A Carreon

mcarreon@mines.edu

Separating olefins from paraffins is one of the most challenging and energy intensive industrial processes. Olefins are key chemicals in the chemical and petroleum industries due to their wide use as platform raw materials for many important commercial products. For instance, ethylene is the platform raw material for the synthesis of plastics, fibers, synthetic rubber, synthetic resins, styrene, ethylene oxide, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, among others. It has been estimated that the global annual production ethane and propene exceeds 200 million tonnes. In the petrochemical industry olefins are always accompanied by a considerable amount of paraffins. Therefore, to produce pure olefin for further utilization, the paraffin needs to be removed. We propose to develop microporous crystalline molecular sieve membranes having the potential to effectively separate olefin/paraffin mixtures (relevant to hydrocarbon separations).The benchmark technology for these separations gases is cryogenic distillation, which is an energy intensive process. The membrane technology proposed here could play a key role in making these separations less energy intensive. We propose to develop membranes having precise pore apertures of ~ 4 Å. These membranes can potentially molecular sieve olefins (ethylene, and propylene 4 to 4.1 Å size) from paraffins (ethane and propane 4.2-4.4 Å size).

Grand Challenge: Develop carbon sequestration methods

M.A. Carreon, Porous crystals as membranes, Science 2020, 367, 6478, 624-625. S.R. Venna, M.A.Carreon, Metal organic framework membranes for carbon dioxide separation, Chemical Engineering Science 2015, 124, 3-19. M.A. Carreon, S.R. Venna “Metal Organic Framework Membranes for Molecular Gas Separations”. Volume 6. ISBN: ISBN 978-1-78634-672-8. World Scientific. 2020.

Myself Current graduate students in my group : James Crawford, Keerthana Krishnan , Shurraya Denning