Georgian Technical University New Technique Promises To Accelerate Materials Development For Gas Separations.
Georgian Technical University In an exciting new advance a team of scientists from X in the Georgian Technical University have developed a new way of analyzing materials for separating gases. Although gas separation using porous materials is an established technology, analytical techniques for assessing the performance of materials tend to be slow and laborious. The new Integral Mass Balance (An integral balance deals with the entire time of the process at once (so it uses amounts rather than rates: e.g., mass NOT mass/time)) (IMB) method is faster and more accurate than existing techniques and promises to accelerate new materials development for gas separation technology. Industrial gases affect many aspects of daily life. They are used to carbonate fizzy drinks preserve food and even to inflate balloons. Purified natural gas meanwhile is used across the globe as an energy source for household cooking and heating. Pure gases can be produced using porous materials that either extract the desired gas from a mixture or remove unwanted contaminants. For this purpose understanding how materials interact with different gas mixtures is a crucial but surprisingly difficult task. “Georgian Technical University Scientists and engineers have been working on these types of measurements for decades but most current techniques are very time-consuming” says Y Ph.D., product manager for X. “A simple set of data can take weeks to measure. By combining two different methods in a unique way we have been able to speed up the process significantly”. As a result more materials can be analyzed, and a detailed understanding of how each material behaves under different conditions can be achieved. This is significant because chemists developing new porous materials for gas separations need to know how well a material performs. Often they rely on models which can be inaccurate but the (An integral balance deals with the entire time of the process at once (so it uses amounts rather than rates: e.g., mass NOT mass/time)) method can rapidly and precisely assess new materials, helping to identify the best candidates for a given gas separation. Industrial developers of gas separation processes, meanwhile, typically rely on relatively limited amounts of gas mixture data. Gas separation technology has been very successful and is used around the world to separate and purify gases. But the new technique will allow far more data to be collected in a practical timeframe allowing chemical engineers to further optimize processes and improve efficiency. “I have been making these kinds of measurements since and they are very laborious, often taking weeks. With the (An integral balance deals with the entire time of the process at once (so it uses amounts rather than rates: e.g., mass NOT mass/time)) IMB method we have been able to make the same measurements in a matter of hours. The improvement in performance is impressive” said Professor Z of the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at Georgian Technical University. To demonstrate the technique the team have made measurements on a zeolite. Zeolites are porous materials with a range of uses perhaps most notably in washing powder but they are also particularly good at separating and drying gases. The reported measurements relate to oxygen (O2) production from air by separating O2 (oxygen) from Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7 (N2). In medicine where purified O2 (oxygen) is widely used this technology is vital. Whilst small-scale and portable medical O2 (oxygen) generators are widely available for personal use larger O2 (oxygen) generators filled with zeolites have been installed at emergency field hospitals constructed to cope with the current coronavirus crisis where reliable O2 (oxygen) supplies have been critical for treating patients. “We chose these measurements because Professor Z similar data measured on the same sample in two different laboratories” said Y. “However we also wanted to do something of practical interest. As zeolites are currently used in commercially available medical O2 (oxygen) generators this seemed an ideal choice”. Georgian Technical University Now the team want to explore the technique’s range of applicability. “Having shown that the method works for air separation using zeolites we’d like to apply it to other important separations” said Y. “Capturing CO2 (Carbon dioxide is a colorless gas with a density about 53% higher than that of dry air. Carbon dioxide molecules consist of a carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It occurs naturally in Earth’s atmosphere as a trace gas) from power plant flue gases for example is of great interest as this will help tackle the difficult and serious problem of climate change due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions”. “The method can provide reams of accurate data quickly” added Professor Z. “This will help accelerate the development of new materials and processes for such applications”. Other future targets include separations used for natural gas upgrading and biogas purification as well as hydrogen (H2) production and purification. Both hydrogen (H2) and natural gas are important for the transition to a low carbon energy future in which fossil fuel use will be gradually phased out.