“The Most Rich University in the World”, Membrane Separation Releases Nature! Published 3 articles in 20 days Science/Nature! _ Natural Gas _ fum _ Methane
Original Title “The World’s Most Rich University”thin film distillation Membrane Separation Releases “Nature”! Published 3 Science/Nature articles in 20 days! One Research background Natural gas accounts for at least a quarter of the world’s energy supply a share that is expected to overtake coal around 2032 This growth poses a challenge to conventional natural gas purification technologies because natural gas reservoirs are contaminated with nitrogen (N2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) In fact about 50% of the world’s natural gas reserves known as substandard reservoirs exceed the maximum of 4% of N2 pipeline specifications Therefore it is necessary to explore energy-efficient and low-cost technologies that can separate N2 from methane (CH4) In contrast to the different CO2 capture pathways (eg liquid-based absorbents solid-state sorbents and membranes) cryogenic distillation is currently the only technology employed for plant-scale N2 removal In theory N2 selective membranes or CH4 selective membranes can distinguish between N2 and CH4; however N2 selective membranes are preferred because CH4 is trapped at high pressures saving the high cost of recompression compared to using CH4 selective membranes However due to the small size difference the ideal N2/CH4 selectivity even for the polymer membranes of the prior art remains below 3 Inorganic membranes based on narrow pore size zeolites (about 38 ?) can perform better with an optimal N2/CH4 selectivity higher than 10 However this is at the expense of low productivity due to the winterization filtration small pore size and there is also a trade-off behavior between permeability and selectivity among zeolite membranes Two Research results To use natural gas as an alternative to coal and oil its main component methane needs to be separated in high purity In particular nitrogen dilutes the calorific value of natural gas and is therefore critical to cleanup However the inertness of nitrogen and its similarity to methane in terms of kinetic size polarizability and boiling point pose special challenges for developing energy-efficient nitrogen removal processes Today Professor Mohamed Eddaoudi’s team at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia reported a mixed-junction metal-organic framework (MOF) membrane based on fumarate (fum) and mesaconate (mes) junctions Zr-fum67-mes33-fcu-MOF Which has a specific aperture shape for efficient removal of nitrogen from natural gas The intentional introduction of asymmetry in the parent trilobal pore results in an irregular shape that prevents the transport of tetrahedral methane while allowing linear nitrogen penetration The Zr-Fum67-Mes33-Fcu-MOF membrane exhibits record high nitrogen/methane selectivity and nitrogen permeability at realistic pressures up to 50 bar removing carbon dioxide and nitrogen from natural gas Techno-economic analysis shows that this membrane has the potential to reduce the cost of methane purification by about 66% relative to cryogenic distillation and amine-based carbon dioxide capture while reducing the cost of carbon dioxide and nitrogen removal by about 73% Relevant research work was published in the top international journal Nature under the title of “Asymmetric pore windows in MOF membranes for natural gas valorization” ” According to reports King Abdullah University of Science and Technology just published two Science blockbuster achievements on membrane separation on June 3 Less than a month later Nature was published again It’s too strong! King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) known as “the richest university in the world” is a private international and research-oriented university specializing in science and engineering Known as the “House of Wisdom” the “Arab MIT” was established in 2009 and is located in Jeddah Saudi Arabia
