(586a) Commercializing a Membrane Technology in the Oil and Gas Industry

By some accounts, chemical separations account for roughly half of the industrial energy use in the US and membranes have been heralded for many years as a way to reduce energy as well as capital needed for those separations. Compact Membrane Systems has been focused on one of the most energy-intensive separations, namely that of separating light olefins and paraffins. Our efforts have resulted in a successful field demonstration of our Optiperm^TM fluoropolymer membranes on a stream of mixed C3 olefins and paraffins. We are now scaling up the membrane cartridges and developing larger commercial demonstrations.

This talk will focus on some of the highlights of our product development path thus far as well as lessons learned along the way. We have ruthlessly focused our energies on suitability for commercial adoption. This approach has led to an economically attractive, technologically capable, user friendly, and readily manufacturable product In addition to separation performance (permeance and selectivity) the technical characteristics most valued by users are stability, reliability and ease of operation. We have opted to work with potential customers as early as possible in an effort to learn at the beginning of the product development process what is feasible and what is not. We believe this has led to our success thus far, although there is still a long road to travel before widespread commercial adoption. This talk will cover what we see as the path forward and where we believe strategic partnerships will be necessary or important to ease the way.