Georgia Tech Research Corporation

University of Texas System

Chevron U.s.a. Inc.

Dow Global Technologies LLC

Shell Oil Comapny

Other

Exxonmobil Research and Engineering Company

General Electric Company

University of Minnesota

Ut-battelle, Inc.

The Coca-cola Company

Exxonmobil Technology and Engineering Company

Phillips 66 Company

Gencorp, Inc.

Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij, B.v.

William John Koros

Stephen Joseph Miller

Liren Xu

Mark K Brayden

Marcos V Martinez

Paul Jason Williams

De Q Vu

Ryan Paul Lively

Nitesh Bhuwania

Ronald Richard Chance

John D Wind

Claudia Staudt-Bickel

Harry William Deckman

Bruce T Kelley

Wulin Qiu

Yu-Han Chu

Rajiv Mahajan

Gongping Liu

Nanwen Li

Yang Liu

John Hessler

Kuang Zhang

Mayumi Kiyono

Patrick Joseph McCloskey

Sheng Dai

Simon Christopher Weston

Ingo Pinnau

Frank Steven Bates

Sudhir S Kulkarni

Christopher W Jones

Daniel Chinn

Robert M Kriegel

Ronald D Moffitt

Sankar Nair

Benjamin A McCool

Brien A Stears

Michael Tsapatsis

Kristi Jean Narang

Paul Edward Howson

Edgar S Sanders, Jr

I Glen Hargis

Dhaval Ajit Bhandari

Meha Rungta

Canghai Ma

Christopher Russell Mubarak

Ryan Burns

Matthew James Realff

Sudeep Maheshwari

Kenneth Arthur Cunefare

Fengyi Zhang

Imona C Omole

Justin Tyler Vaughn

Thomas Fitzgibbons

Elliott Gruber

Mary E Rezac

David R Walker

Cheryl W Jones

Jason S Harris

Richard A Olson

Susan M Jordan

Zhongyun Liu

Greg K Fleming

Hannah E Holmes

Dong Hwi Jeong

Seongbin Ga

Wenying Quan

Stephen J A DeWitt

Ron Chance

Chen Zhang

Joseph Marshall Mayne

Steven K Burgess

Dharmik S Mikkilineni

Daniel Yu

Danny J Kim

Xue Ning

Shilu Fu

Ryan L Burns

Jong Suk Lee

Patrick C Hillesheim

James Noel

Rachana Singh

Adam Michal Kratochvil

Kwang-Suk Jang

Justin Johnson

Jason Keith Ward

Contactor structures are provided that can allow for improved heat management while reducing or minimizing the potential for contamination of process gas streams with heat transfer fluids. The contactor structures can include one or more sets of flow channels for process gas flows, such as gas flows introduced to allow adsorption of components from a gas stream or gas flows introduced to facilitate desorption of previously adsorbed components into a purge gas stream. The process gas flow channels can correspond to flow channels defined by a structural material of unitary structure. The unitary structure can correspond to the entire contactor, or the unitary structure can correspond to a monolith that forms a portion of the contactor. The contactor structures can also include one or more sets of flow channels for heat transfer fluids. The heat transfer flow channels can also be defined by the structural material of a unitary structure.

Advantaged adsorption contactors

Disclosed is a method for removing hydrogen sulfide from natural gas. The method includes passing a natural gas feed including methane and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) through a membrane at normal operating conditions. The membrane is an asymmetric hollow fiber membrane or an asymmetric film composite membrane including a porous layer and a nonporous skin layer. The asymmetric hollow fiber membrane or the nonporous skin layer of the asymmetric film composite membrane plasticizes during the method by exposure to condensable gases with high critical temperature under the operating conditions. The membrane preferentially removes H2S over methane from the natural gas feed at a H2S/methane selectivity of from 7 to 40 when measured at 35° C. and 45 bar.

Membranes for contaminant removal from natural gas and methods for use thereof

The present invention provides an asymmetric modified CMS hollow fiber membrane having improved gas separation performance properties and a process for preparing an asymmetric modified CMS hollow fiber membrane having improved gas separation performance properties. The process comprises treating a polymeric precursor fiber with a solution containing a modifying agent prior to pyrolysis. The concentration of the modifying agent in the solution may be selected in order to obtain an asymmetric modified CMS hollow fiber membrane having a desired combination of gas permeance and selectivity properties. The treated precursor fiber is then pyrolyzed to form an asymmetric modified CMS hollow fiber membrane having improved gas permeance.

Asymmetric modified carbon molecular sieve hollow fiber membranes having improved permeance

A carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane having improved separation characteristics for separating olefins from their corresponding paraffins is comprised of carbon with at most trace amounts of sulfur and a group 13 metal. The CMS membrane may be made by pyrolyzing a precursor polymer devoid of sulfur in which the precursor polymer has had a group 13 metal incorporated into it, wherein the metal is in a reduced state. The pyrolyzing for the precursor having the group 13 metal incorporated into it is performed in a nonoxidizing atmosphere and at a heating rate and temperature such that the metal in a reduced state (e.g., covalently bonded to carbon or nitrogen or in the metal state).

Carbon molecular sieve membranes containing a group 13 metal and method to make them

The invention is an improved method of making an improved carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane in which a precursor polymer (e.g., polyimide) is pyrolyzed at a pyrolysis temperature to form a CMS membrane that is cooled to ambient temperature (about 40&#xb0; C. or 30&#xb0; C. to about 20&#xb0; C.). The CMS membrane is then reheated to a reheating temperature of at least 250&#xb0; C. to 400&#xb0; C. to form the improved CMS membrane. The CMS have a novel microstructure as determined by Raman spectroscopy. The improved CMS membranes have shown an improved combination of selectivity and permeance as well as stability for separating light hydrocarbon gas molecules such as Cto Chydrocarbon gases (e.g., methane, ethane, propane, ethylene, propylene, butane, butylene).

Method of making carbon molecular sieve membranes

A carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane having improved separation characteristics for separating olefins from their corresponding paraffins is comprised of carbon with at most trace amounts of sulfur and a transition metal, wherein the transition metal is one or more of a group 4-10 and 12 transition metal. The CMS membrane may be made by pyrolyzing a precursor polymer devoid of sulfur in which the precursor polymer has had a transition metal incorporated into it. The pyrolyzing for the precursor having the transition metal incorporated into it is performed in a nonoxidizing atmosphere and at a heating rate and temperature such that the metal has a valence greater than zero (i.e., not metal bonded) to a valence desirably closer to its maximum valence.

Transition metal containing carbon molecular sieve membranes and method to make them

The invention is an improved method of making an improved carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane in which a precursor polymer (e.g., polyimide) is pyrolyzed at a pyrolysis temperature to form a CMS membrane that is cooled to ambient temperature (about 40&#xb0; C. or 30&#xb0; C. to about 20&#xb0; C.). The CMS membrane is then reheated to a reheating temperature less than the pyrolysis temperature to form the improved CMS membrane. The improved CMS membranes have shown an improved combination of selectivity and permeance as well as stability for separating hydrogen from gas molecules (e.g., methane, ethane, propane, ethylene, propylene, butane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, butylene, and combinations thereof).

The invention is an improved method of making a carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane in which a precursor polymer is pyrolyzed to form a carbon molecular sieve membrane that is then exposed to a conditioning atmosphere comprised of a target permeate gas molecule such as ethylene when the membrane is desired to separate it from a light hydrocarbon gas stream. The exposure to the ethylene desirably occurs prior to the CMS permeance and selectivity combination substantially changing (e.g., within 5 days) of cooling from the pyrolyzing temperature. The CMS membranes have shown an improved combination of selectivity and permeance as well as stability and are useful to separate gases in gas streams such methane from natural gas, oxygen from air and ethylene or propylene from light hydrocarbon streams.

The invention is an improved method of making a carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane in which a polyimide precursor polymer is pyrolyzed to form a carbon molecular sieve membrane by heating, in a furnace, said polyimide precursor polymer to a final pyrolysis temperature of 600 C to 700 C at a pyrolysis heating rate of 3 to 7 C/minute from 400 C to the final pyrolysis temperature, the final pyrolysis temperature being held for a pyrolysis time of at most 60 minutes in a non-oxidizing atmosphere. In a particular embodiment, the cooling rate from the pyrolysis temperature is accelerated by methods to remove heat. The CMS membranes have shown an improved combination of selectivity and permeance as well as being particularly suitable to separate gases in gas streams such methane from natural gas, oxygen from air and ethylene or propylene from light hydrocarbon streams.

The present disclosure describes a process for separating at least a first gas component and a second gas component by contacting a gas stream comprising the first and second gas components with a carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane under aggressive gas separation conditions in which the partial pressure of the selectively sorbed gas component in the gas stream is high. Despite the high partial pressure of the sorbed gas component, the selectivity of the carbon molecular sieve membrane is not substantially reduced by plasticization or saturation. In some embodiments, the aggressive gas separation process may include contacting a gas stream at supercritical conditions with a CMS membrane to separate at least first and second gas components. The process may be useful for, among other things, the separation of COfrom a natural gas stream.

Carbon molecular sieve membranes for aggressive gas separations

This disclosure provides an investigation of the kinetic uptake properties of water in amorphous PEF and PET across the entire water activity interval at various temperatures, and also investigates the corresponding equilibrium uptake properties at the same conditions. Uptake data were measured using three independent and complementary methodologies, and excellent agreement was observed among all three methodologies. Accordingly, this disclosure provides for methods of plasticizing poly(ethylene furanoate) film by cold water sorption, and provides a plasticized poly(ethylene furanoate) (PEF) film made according to the disclosed methods. Methods for making thin films of PEF are also provided.

Methods for plasticizing poly(ethylene furanoate) films by water sorption

Disclosed herein are asymmetric multilayer carbon molecular sieve ('CMS') hollow fiber membranes and processes for preparing the membranes. The processes include simultaneously extruding a core dope containing a polymer and suitable nanoparticles, a sheath dope, and a bore fluid, followed by pyrolysis of the extruded fiber.

Composite nanoparticle stabilized core carbon molecular sieve hollow fiber membranes having improved permeance

The various embodiments of the disclosure relate generally to carbon molecular sieve membranes (CMSM) and their associated fabrication processes for the separation of nitrogen/methane gas mixtures, and more particularly to CMSM that maintain high nitrogen-methane selectivity and high gas permeabilities. Methods for removing nitrogen from a nitrogen methane mixture gas via the use of the CMS membranes and gas enrichment devices using the same are also disclosed.

Carbon molecular sieve membranes for nitrogen/methane separation

Growing community of inventors

Atlanta, GA, United States of America

William John Koros