Carbon Molecular Sieve Membranes for Applications in Olefins Units

The separation of olefins from paraffins is important in the petrochemical industry. The current dominant technology, cryogenic distillation, is highly energy intensive. A hybrid membrane-distillation process is proposed to retrofit the current platform.

Carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes are able to overcome the polymer upper bound of the productivity-efficiency tradeoff. Making the novel carbon membrane into the asymmetric hollow fiber form is of great interest as well as tailoring the microscopic molecular sieving microstructure.

Dow has been collaborating with Prof. Bill Koros on the development of CMS membranes for cracked gas processing. Major advancements made in the past years in both membrane materials and new processes using these materials have led to new discoveries that will be reported during this presentation.