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Carl Liskey

Chunqing Liu

Nicole K Karns

Howie Q Tran

Michael B Hamoy

Trung S Pham

Charles P Luebke

Simon E Albo

Stanley Joseph Frey

Lubo Zhou

Gregory R Werba

Saadet Ulas Acikgoz

Steven Kozup

David W Greer

Mander Singh

A process and system to control the final product quality in a system for separating olefins and paraffins in a membrane system. A small finishing membrane stage is added to an existing membrane system that takes a slip stream from the product, purifies it to a very high concentration of propylene and blends it back into the product stream.

Method and system to control and maintain product quality for an olefin membrane separation

Systems and processes are provided to prevent light ends such as methane, ethylene and ethane from building up in an olefin/paraffin separation system that uses a combination of a membrane and distillation column for this separation. In one embodiment a small stripper column is provided downstream from a selective hydrogenation reactor. In the other embodiment, a surge vessel with a receiver is added to the retentate stream of the membrane unit.

Process and system for removal of light ends and non-condensables to prevent buildup in an olefin/paraffin membrane separation process

A process is provided of making facilitated transport membrane comprising a relatively hydrophilic, very small pore, nanoporous support membrane, a hydrophilic polymer inside the very small nanopores on the skin layer surface of the support membrane, a thin, nonporous, hydrophilic polymer layer coated on the surface of the support membrane, and metal salts incorporated in the hydrophilic polymer layer coated on the surface of the support membrane and the hydrophilic polymer inside the very small nanopores. In addition, the process provides a new method of making facilitated transport membrane spiral wound elements or hollow fiber modules for olefin/paraffin separations, particularly for C3=/C3 and C2=/C2 separations.

Methods of making high selectivity facilitated transport membranes, high selectivity facilitated transport membrane elements and modules

A process is provided for separation of light olefins and paraffins and particular for the separation of propylene and propane comprising sending at least one olefin/paraffin stream to a distillation column and a membrane unit to produce an olefin stream comprising at least 92 mol % olefin. In an embodiment of the invention where the membrane unit is placed downstream from the column which can produce propylene streams at polymer grade of over 99.5 mol % propylene.

Method and system for light olefin separation

The invention discloses dual layer-coated membranes and methods for making and using these membranes. The dual layer-coated membranes have a relatively porous and substantial void-containing selective asymmetric membrane support, a first coating layer comprising a hydrogel, and a second coating layer comprising a hydrophobic fluoropolymer. The membrane support has low selectivity and high permeance. The dual layer coating improves the selectivity of the membrane support and maintains the membrane performance with time. The dual layer-coated membranes are suitable for a variety of liquid, gas, and vapor separations such as water purification, non-aqueous liquid separation such as deep desulfurization of gasoline and diesel fuels, ethanol/water separations, pervaporation dehydration of aqueous/organic mixtures, fuel gas conditioning, CO/CH, He/CH, CO/N, H/CH, O/N, olefin/paraffin, iso/normal paraffins separations, and other light gas mixture separations. The dual layer-coated membranes are especially useful for natural gas liquid (NGL) recovery and COremoval from natural gas.

Dual layer-coated membranes for gas separations

This invention provides a new facilitated transport membrane comprising a relatively hydrophilic, very small pore, nanoporous support membrane, a hydrophilic polymer inside the very small nanopores on the skin layer surface of the support membrane, a thin, nonporous, hydrophilic polymer layer coated on the surface of the support membrane, and metal salts incorporated in the hydrophilic polymer layer coated on the surface of the support membrane and the hydrophilic polymer inside the very small nanopores, a method of making this membrane, and the use of this membrane for olefin/paraffin separations, particularly for C3=/C3 and C2=/C2 separations.

High selectivity facilitated transport membranes and their use for olefin/paraffin separations

A co-cast thin film composite flat sheet membrane is provided that comprises an asymmetric porous non-selective support layer with a thickness of 10-50 micrometers and an asymmetric integrally skinned polyimide-containing selective layer with a thickness of 5-40 micrometers on top of said support layer, wherein said asymmetric integrally skinned polyimide-containing selective layer comprises a porous non-selective polyimide-containing support layer with a thickness of &#x2dc;5-40 micrometers and a relatively porous, thin, dense, polyimide-containing top skin layer with a thickness of 0.02-0.2 micrometers.

Co-cast thin film composite flat sheet membranes for gas separations and olefin/paraffin separations

A copolyimide polymer membrane is provided for separation of hydrocarbons including separation of olefins from paraffins and isoparaffins from other paraffins. The copolyimide polymer membranes include a poly(3,3'-diaminobenzophenone-3,3&#x2032;,5,5&#x2032;-tetramethyl-4,4&#x2032;-methylene dianiline-pyromellitic dianhydride) (abbreviated as poly(DAB-TMMDA-PMDA)). The copolyimide membranes prepared from poly(DAB-TMMDA-PMDA) with varying molar ratios of DAB to TMMDA (abbreviated as PI-DAB-T) showed excellent separation properties for propylene/propane separation.

Copolyimide membranes with high permeability and selectivity for olefin/paraffin separations

Polyimide membranes are provided that provide extremely high permeability. The polyimides do not contain carbonyl or sulfonyl functional groups. These membranes are useful in separating gases including the separation of gas pairs including carbon dioxide/methane, hydrogen/methane and propylene/propane as well as other gas mixtures. The membrane selectivity can be adjusted by exposure to ultraviolet light.

High permeability polyimide membranes: gas selectivity enhancement through UV treatment

The invention is a process of making a chemically and UV treated polymer of intrinsic microporosity membrane comprising preparing a polymer of intrinsic microporosity, chemically cross-linking said polymer of intrinsic microporosity with a cross-linking compound to produce a chemically cross-linked polymer of intrinsic microporosity and then treating said chemically cross-linked polymer with UV radiation for a period of time sufficient to provide a product membrane. This product membrane is useful in the separation of C3 and higher hydrocarbons, as well as CO, from natural gas and other gas streams.

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Chicago, IL, United States of America

Carl Liskey