A new approach could fractionate crude oil using much less . . . MIT researchers have developed a new membrane that can separate different kinds of fuel by molecular size, which could replace the current energy-intensive crude oil distillation process “Roughly 1 percent of global energy use goes into separating crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and heating oil,” writes Aamir Khollam for Interesting
New MIT Tech Could Cut Oil Refining Energy by 90% - SciTechDaily In fact, this process is responsible for about 6 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions Most of that energy is spent heating the oil to separate its components based on their boiling points Now, in an exciting breakthrough, engineers at MIT have created a new kind of membrane that could change the game Instead of using heat, this
MIT Chemical Engineers Develop New Way To Separate Crude Oil Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from the Cool Down: A team of chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a new process to separate crude oil components, potentially bringing forward a replacement that can cut its harmful carbon pollution by 90% The original technique, which uses heat to
Polymer membrane separates hydrocarbons, offering alternative . . . Fractional distillation of crude oil consumes nearly 1% of global energy and accounts for 6% of the world’s carbon emissions In 2016 chemical engineers Ryan Lively and David Sholl at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US, placed the isothermal separation of crude oil top of a list of ‘seven chemical separations to change the world’
New tech could provide cheaper, less-polluting way to refine . . . According to Neel Rangnekar, a chemical engineer with Exxon and a team member on the new paper, switching from distillation to membrane separation could save up to 50% of the cost of heating the crude oil and 75% of the cost of electricity used in refining, amounting to at least $3 5 billion per year