Scaleup of a Membrane to Separate Light Olefins and Paraffins

The separation of light olefins from paraffins is one of the most energy-intensive unit operations in petrochemicals and refining. Distillation, the current state of the art, is both capital and energy-intensive, requiring tall towers to separate ethylene from ethane or propylene from propane. Membranes have long held promise for reducing the energy and capital requirements for this separation but previously, no membrane had demonstrated sufficient stability and ruggedness for commercial scaleup and adoption. Compact Membrane Systems has developed, and is in the process of bringing to commercial fruition, a membrane for this purpose. Optiperm^TM is a facilitated transport membrane that combines the chemical stability of fluoropolymers with the selectivity of a silver facilitating agent. Initial applications for this process involve recovering olefin from purge streams that would otherwise be sent to fuel or recycled to a splitter. System models have been completed to demonstrate the potential of Optipermâ„¢ to efficiently recover olefins from a variety of stream compositions, and the resulting benefits of avoiding flare or increasing splitter capacity. This talk will share the scale up progress of Optiperm^TM as well as details surrounding the progress on a demonstration unit for Braskem. This unit is the first installation of Optipermâ„¢ that will simultaneously produce greater than 90% purity in both the olefin and paraffin streams. We anticipate sharing results of scale up for both spiral wound cartridges and hollow fiber cartridges. Finally, facilitated transport membranes require humidification to operate efficiently. To ensure constant humidification and avoid feed humidification on a vapor feed, CMS has developed a proprietary humidification system that utilizes liquid water directly. Results from initial testing of this novel system will also be shared.