A cross-section of a membrane module that contains hollow fibers for separating gases.
The University of Kansas School of Engineering joins industry partners to advance gas-separation with green materials first created for soda bottles. A $1 million, 18-month collaboration between the University of Kansas School of Engineering and the RAPID Manufacturing Institute for Process Intensification launched in 2017 by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers will develop technology to separate gas using renewable, high-performance furanic-based polymers that were originally developed for replacing PET-based soda bottles. The research is supported by a new $384,927 grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) and includes collaborations with DuPont, Hills Inc. and Air Products.
The investigation at KU, dubbed “Project H22020,” could result in membranes that reduce capital costs by a factor of 10 and increase hydrogen recovery by 20% while reducing both waste and the cost of separation by 20%. Such a breakthrough would be a boon to companies that refine oil and produce hydrogen fuel cells, replacing gas-separation technology used today made from materials developed in the 1970s and 1980s.
“These are furanic-based polymer membranes — it’s a new material that the DuPont Company is commercializing,” says Mark Shiflett, Foundation Distinguished Professor at the KU School of Engineering, who is leading the work. “Think of it as a new plastic. The ultimate reason that they’re making it is as a replacement for PET, the plastic that’s used to produce most beverage bottles. So, when you buy a two-liter Coke or liter of water, the bottle is made out of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) that ultimately comes from petroleum. These furanic-based polymers will replace PET to manufacture what are basically green water and soda bottles. These furanic-based polymers don’t come from petroleum but natural starting materials like fructose.”
The KU researcher says furanic polymers are an ideal material to use for industrial gas separation because they’re largely impermeable to larger gas molecules. Shiflett’s lab at KU will conduct experiments with furanic-based membranes as a proof-of-concept in coordination with industry leaders in the polymers, polymer processing and gas separation technologies.
“DuPont is donating the membranes to us,” Shiflett says. “Then, Hills is a company that takes the polymer and spins it into hollow fibers to be used in membrane modules for doing gas separations. Air Products is one of the world leaders in gas separations. They’ll help us with assessing whether the gas separations that we’re studying in our lab are good enough to be used commercially, because that’s what they do for customers like NASA.”
For more information, visit: www.ku.edu
