Chemical Engineering April 2019 - 8

Sunfire-HyLink electrolyzer will
first be compressed and dried
in the H2-processing unit supplied
by Paul Wurth. Salzgitter
Flachstahl will be responsible
for operating the plant and feeding
the gas into the company's
own H2 network.
In parallel with this, CEA will
conduct multi-year trials of
the
electrolyzer stacks that
form the central elements of
HTE technology. Tenova will
support the project through a
technical and economic study
to accompany the decarburization
of European steel industry
through the conversion at a
very low CO2, green-H2-based
steel production. Salzgitter
Mannesmann Forschung is responsible
for project coordination
and management.
TIO2 COATING
An antimicrobial titanium dioxide
coating, claimed to be
much more effective than previous
titanium dioxide coatings,
has been developed by a
team led by professor Susan
Krumdieck of the University
of Canterbury (Christchurch,
New Zealand; www.canterbury.ac.nz),
and researchers
from the University of Grenoble
Alpes (Grenoble, France;
www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr).
TiO2 has received much
attention as a possible antimicrobial
material due to its
(Continues on p. 9)
Zeolite membranes to undergo large-scale testing
for CO2 capture
I
n late February, construction
began on a test facility
that will be used to demonstrate
a CO2-capture
process being developed
by JGC Corp. (Yokohama,
Japan; www.jgc.com) and
Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National
Corp. (JOGMEC; Tokyo;
www.jogmec.go.jp). When the
Texas-based facility is completed,
it will operate for one
year to demonstrate a zeolitetype
membrane for removing
CO2 from associated gas that
is generated during petroleum
production. The site produces 3 million ft3/d
of associated gas.
Natural gas/
associated gas
with high CO2
Cell
For the demonstration, the facility will use
DDR-type zeolite membranes, which have
been under development since 2008 by
JGC and the ceramics producer NKG Insulators,
Ltd. (Tokyo; www.ngk-insulators.com).
The test will confirm the performance of the
process using large-size elements (180 mm
dia.; 1,000 mm length) of the DDR-type zeolite
membrane. The separation process (diagram)
has been jointly developed by NGK
and JGC since 2008. The DDR-type zeolite
membranes will be manufactured by NGK
using its advanced membrane-production
technology. The membranes' " outstanding "
CO2 selectivity and high-pressure resistance
have been verified in tests carried out at the
company's research facility.
JGC expects the process can be applied
for both CO2 recovery from associated gas
JGC
Structure of large-size elements of
the DDR-type zeolite membranes
Permeate gas flow line
Natural gas/
associated gas after
removal of CO2
Slit
CO2-rich gas
during oil production, and CO2 removal during
natural gas processing. Current methods
generally use polymer-membrane separation
processes for the former, and chemical absorption
processes for the latter. However,
these methods both have drawbacks. For
example, significant deterioration of polymer
membranes often occurs when the associated
gas contains high concentrations of
CO2, resulting in costly membrane replacement.
In contrast, the DDR-type zeolite
membrane is highly durable, even under high
CO2 concentration conditions.
High CO2 concentrations in natural-gas
processing can also lead to increased costs
associated with chemical absorption methods,
due to increased solvent usage and
energy needed for solvent regeneration. For
this application, the zeolite-based membrane
could be used before the absorption
step to significantly reduce these costs.
A new catalyst for making renewable feedstocks
T
8
he compound 2,5-furandicarboxylic
acid (FDCA) is an attractive
raw material that can
be used to create polyethylene
furanoate, which is a bio-polyester
with many applications. One
way of making FDCA is through the
oxidation of 5-hydroxymethyl furfural
(HMF), a compound that can be
synthesized from cellulose. However,
the necessary oxidation reactions
require the presence of a catalyst,
and many of the catalysts studied
thus far involve precious metals. It
is known that manganese oxides
combined with certain metals (such
as iron and copper) can be used as
catalysts. Now, a research team from
the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Yokohama
Campus, Japan; www.msl.
titech.ac.jp/~hara/index-e.html) has
reported that manganese dioxide
(MnO2) can be used by itself as an
effective catalyst if the crystals made
with it have the appropriate structure.
The team, led by associate professor
Keigo Kamata and professor
Michikazu Hara, worked to determine
which MnO2 crystal structure would
have the best catalytic activity for
making FDCA, and why. They inferred
through computational analyses and
the available theory that the structure
of the crystals was crucial because of
the steps involved in the oxidation of
HMF. To verify this, they synthesized
various types of MnO2 crystals, and
then compared their performance
through numerous analyses. Of these
crystals, β-MnO2 was the most promising
because of its active planar oxygen
sites. Not only was its vacancy
formation energy lower than that of
other structures, but the material itself
was proven to be very stable, even
after being used for oxidation reactions
on HMF.
The team proposed a new synthesis
method to yield highly pure
β-MnO2 with a large surface area
in order to improve the FDCA yield
and accelerate the oxidation process
even further. " The synthesis of highsurface-area
β-MnO2 is a promising
strategy for the highly efficient oxidation
of HMF with MnO2 catalysts, "
says Kamata.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
APRIL 2019
http://www.jgc.com http://www.jogmec.go.jp http://www.ngk-insulators.com http://www.canter http://bury.ac.nz http://www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr http://www.msl http://titech.ac.jp/~hara/index-e.html http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering April 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering April 2019
