(245a) An Evolutionary Path to a Revolution in Low Energy Intensive Separation Processes

Purification and separation to provide commodities needed for a high standard of living are energy intensive, yet almost invisible consumers of a significant fraction of global energy. If the global economy prospers, by 2050, global demand for commodities such as water, fuel and basic chemicals may escalate by three-fold beyond current needs. Such demand growth, fueled by population growth and the need to provide a higher standard of living in emerging economies, can be positive. On the other hand, basing expanding commodity capacity on current separation technology to meet such a demand growth will require a large increase in global energy consumption and additional carbon dioxide environmental burdens. Ultimately, scaling up energy-inefficient technologies would be costly to decommission, despite their environmental burdens. It is imperative, therefore, that alternative large scale separation and purification approaches be developed and implemented within the next decade to address this challenge. Membranes offer the best option for a 10X reduction in separation process energy intensity. Emerging membrane technology appears likely to be economically able to meet this challenge; however, a concerted program is needed to perfect and deploy such processes on a global scale. Practical approaches to enable this perfection and deployment will be outlined with a focus on novel materials their manufacture and implementation using an evolutionary roadmap to minimize risk to adopters of such advanced technology.