Advancing Industrial Decarbonization: Evaluating the State of Organic Membrane Technology for Class-Based Hydrocarbon Separation

Industrial organic chemical separations are major contributors to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the energy industry, contributing to global temperature rise. As membrane separations have successfully reduced energy requirements in water purification and desalination, their application in organic separations, a challenging area to decarbonize, is gaining attention. With gas phase organic membrane separations being installed at the industrial scale, liquid separations remain as the next frontier for industrial decarbonization. This thesis begins with an exploration of the history and current developments in membrane technology, focusing on enhancing membrane applications for liquid organic hydrocarbon separations. The objective is to showcase technological advancements that address the existing limitations of semi-permeable membrane systems in organic liquid hydrocarbon separation processes. Then this work presents a first-order thermodynamic screening method to determine the suitability of membrane separations for different liquid separation processes in a refinery. The method is specifically applied to a data set of gasoline and lighter hydrocarbon separations executed following a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) operating unit. First, the findings highlight that non-polymer based membrane materials offer improved durability and performance. Second, preferential separations for liquid organic membrane applications involve feed compositions with a higher percentage of material above the intended molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) for separation. Third, an effective combination of membrane and traditional distillation separation methods in brownfield constructions is observed in mitigating distillation overhead limitations. Lastly, this work identifies areas for improvement and recommends technological advancements to further the industrial adoption of semi-permeable membrane installations, enhancing the potential for widespread implementation and significant environmental impact.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Cochran, Corinne S.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Rubin, Joan
• Lienhard, John H.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/152739

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/152739