Award Data

60395 Emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from gasoline refueling facilities continue to be an energy, safety, and environmental issue. In such applications, it is desired to vent the air in the system and keep the VOC behind. This project will develop a reverse separation membrane (RSM) system that allows for rapid venting of air while retaining the gasoline in underground storag ...

65445 Consumption of diesel fuel and gasoline have led to significant dependence on foreign fuel as well as increased carbon dioxide emissions with the associated concern for global warming. Diesel engines are much more fuel efficient than spark/gasoline engines, but unfortunately diesel engines produce high NOx emissions. This has been addressed by a process known as exhaust gas recycle (EG ...

78204SThe conversion of corn and other biomass to fuel grade ethanol not only would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources but also would be a major industrial application for agricultural products. However, the process of drying the ethanol from a 95% ethanol-5% water mixture (the azeotrope) to fuel grade ethanol consumes significant amounts of energy, incurring costs that continue to ...

78749S Distillation is a very valuable chemical engineering unit operation, but it is both energy and capital intensive. This is especially true when components either form azeotropes or have small relative volatility differences. A hybrid, robust membrane process could eliminate azeotropes and process pinch points. Therefore, this project will develop chemically and thermally stable high flux ...

78243S Substantial amounts of natural gas reserves contain large amounts of non-methane gases, such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, which make them uneconomical to market. While commercially available membranes offer the potential to remove these gases and produce pipeline grade natural gas, these membranes have limited separation capability or have failed due to unanticipated poisoning ...

76045-The capture of carbon dioxide at the source of its emission has been a major focus in greenhouse gas emission control. Solutions must be both compact and economic, and also address the removal of other acid gases from natural gas streams. Current technologies used for capturing CO2 suffer from inefficient mass transfer and economics. This project will develop a stable, membrane-based, CO2 ...

N/A

Distillation is a major chemical unit operation and consumer of significant energy. Often, water or another intermediate boiling component can become trapped within the distillation column and accumulate. This causes various operating difficulties such as flooding, slugging, cycling, instability, and an off-spec product. This project will develop a chemically resistant, non-porous water-venting ...

Catalysis plays a substantial role in the synthesis of the most U.S. commodity chemicals, with huge implications for energy usage. Membrane reactors have been proposed for a number of these syntheses. However, to be competitive with conventional technologies, membrane reactors must demonstrate better selectivity, permeability, and/or stability. This project will develop a novel platform with ke ...

The use of ethanol as a fuel would impact U.S. reliance on foreign oil. However, among the economic obstacles to it widespread use are the costs of shipping fuel-grade ethanol by truck. Shipping ethanol by pipeline would be significantly less expensive, but, unfortunately, pipeline ethanol is hydroscopic, which causes too much water to be present in the fuel. This project will develop a simple, ...