PhD Proposal by Hye Youn Jang

Title : Polymeric hollow fiber membranes for the separation of complex hydrocarbon mixtures

Date : Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Time : 10 :00 am - 12:00 pm ET

Location : 1387 Conference Room ES&T

Student Name : Hye Youn Jang

School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Abstract

The most common feedstock for bulk commodities is crude oil, and currently, the fractionation of crude oil is completed using distillation, which requires a large amount of thermal energy. Membrane-based separations can potentially utilize as little as 10% of the energy required for thermal based technologies; however, they have yet to be considered for application in crude oil fractionation. A combination of various organic solvent nanofiltration and organic solvent reverse osmosis membranes has the potential to enable membrane-based fractionation of crude oil, which is the overarching motivation of the thesis as well as the beneficiary impact to the chemical society. Finding an alternative to fractional distillation is a challenging topic due to the similarity in physical and chemical characteristics of typical compounds to be separated. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of separating hydrocarbons based on their molecular properties, such as chemical affinity or molecular size, by providing proof-of-concept multi-stage fractionation of complex aromatic hydrocarbon mixtures using various hollow fiber membranes.

The overarching goal in this work is simulating a “proof-of-concept” membrane-based crude oil fractionation system. The primary challenge for crude oil fractionation based on molecular weight difference is the development of membranes that have high permeance of each desired species with high selectivity toward unwanted contaminants. Aromatic mixtures were used as model solutions for assessing organic solvent permeability and separation performance of the membranes. Objective 1 focuses on developing hollow fiber membranes for understanding fundamental organic solvent transport properties. Objective 2 shifts from fundamental transport studies to the creation of both defect-free and defect-engineered asymmetric polymeric hollow fiber membranes for understanding their application in separating simulated crude oil mixtures. Objective 3 focuses on fabrication of dual layer hollow fiber membranes using newly synthesized polymers. Lastly, Objective 4 focuses on proof-of-concept experiments of multi-stage fractionation by replacing an atmospheric/vacuum distillation with a membrane cascade that incorporates various types of hollow fiber membranes from Objectives 1 to 3. This work is highly focused on 1) fabrication of polymeric hollow fiber membranes that can separate organic solvent molecules 2) advancing novel liquid separation techniques with fundamental studies that could be critical to the global energy infrastructure.

Committee

Dr. Ryan P. Lively, Advisor

School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering