Chemical Engineering February 2012 - 10

CHEMENTATOR
(Continued from p. 9)
Nano-engineered glass absorbs organic contaminants . . .
A
n organosilica material with
unique structural properties
due to its nanoscale architecture
has been used to extract
hydrocarbons and other organic
contaminants from water. Marketed
as Osorb by ABS Materials
Inc. (Wooster, Ohio; www.
absmaterials.com), the nanostructured
glass represents a
platform technology that has
been customized by the company
to address a host of water-treatment
and remediation
challenges, including removing
hydrocarbons from produced
water in oil and natural gas
wells and removing chlorinated hydrocarbons
from contaminated soil, among others.
Osorb contains the same stable Si-O-Si
bonds found in glass, but its nanostructure
gives rise to unique properties. The patentprotected
Osorb formulations exploit interactions
between functional groups at the
molecular level to direct the organization of
organosilica matrix at the macro level, explains
Paul Edmiston, the inventor of Osorb,
and chief scientific officer at ABS.
" During the final stages of production,
Osorb is tensioned, " says Edmiston, which
he likens to compressing a nanomolecular
spring (see micrograph). When the extremely
hydrophobic Osorb material encounters organic
compounds, the tension is relaxed, and
the material swells. The organic materials
are trapped in a matrix of nanoscale pores,
from which they can be reversibly removed
eanwhile, ABS Materials (see above) has
used a library of basic Osorb formulaplications.
it is soft, stretchable,
its body contours, promotes
cooling and has " excellent "
absorbency and opaqueness,
says the company.
A boost for biomass
last month saw the start of
a €5.1-million, 42-month research
project dubbed bioboost
- biomass-based energy
intermediates boosting biofuel
production. The project, partially
funded under the e.u.'s 7th
Framework Program, is coordinated
by the Karlsruhe institute
of Technology (KiT; germany;
www.kit.edu) with participation
from six research institutes and
seven industrial partners, including
neste oil, grace, DSm
and Chimar hellas.
The project will focus on the
by vacuum or heat to regenerate Osorb material,
which can then be reused. " Osorb is
like a sponge for organic contaminants that
has nanoscale pores to pull contaminants
from water, " Edmiston says.
The company has developed several
ways to customize the Osorb material
with functional metals or other molecular
groups to address application-specific
challenges. Among the first uses for Osorb
to be commercialized is the in-situ removal
of trichloroethylene (TCE) from soil.
For that application, a slurry containing
Osorb is injected into the soil of contaminated
areas through a drill hole and traps
molecules of TCE as they leach into the
surrounding groundwater. In this case, the
Osorb remains in the soil and continues to
absorb TCE as it encounters it for years
after injection.
. . . and serves as a nanoscale reactor for specific chemistry
M
tions as platforms for a host of modifications
to the material that allow it to function not
only as a molecular trap, but also as a nanoscale
reactor. Advanced forms of Osorb are
being used to carry out catalysis, colorimetric
detection and to perform commercially
important synthetic chemical reactions.
A commercial example is the VOCEater
system, which uses Osorb modified with
palladium metal making it suitable for
treating volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
in water. The VOCEater system not only
traps organic molecules but also reduces
contaminants to salts through a catalytic
hydrodechlorination reaction within the
pore matrix. The VOCEater system can
destroy pharmaceuticals, chlorinated solvents,
pesticides, herbicides, endocrine
disruptors and other compounds. Osorb
has been shown to lower concentrations of
hydrocarbons in produced water from over
200 to around 0.1 mg/L.
Osorb has also been used to treat flowback
water from hydraulically fractured shalegas
wells (see Newsfront on pp. 14-16).
ABS Materials CEO Stephen Spoonamore
envisions using the porous nanostructured
glass materials with specific chemical
groups on the inside of the pores to carry
out important industrial reactions at ambient
temperatures and pressures. Some
examples under development are Suzuki
coupling reactions (Pd-catalyzed joining of
boronic acids with organic substituents and
organic halides) and cycloaddition reactions
(such as Diels-Alder reactions).
10 ChemiCal engineering www.Che.Com February 2012
decentralized conversion of
biomass by fast pyrolysis, catalytic
pyrolysis and hydrothermal
carbonization to intermediate
energy carriers, such as oil, coal
or slurry. based on straw, the
energy density increases from 2
gJ/m3 to 20-31 gJ/m3, enabling
a centralized gigawatt-scale
gasiication plant to process the
carriers into biofuels, such as
diesel, gasoline or kerosene,
as well as chemicals (methanol,
ethylene, propylene and
plastics). Conversion plants in
demonstration scale will enable
the proof-of-concept and further
scaling up to commercial size.
Wastewater treatment
metso Corp. (helsinki, Finland;
www.metso.com) has commercialized
an online measurement
technology that enables operators
of municipal and industrial
wastewater-treatment plants
to improve performance and
reduce the amount of chemicals
used in sludge-drying
processes by up to one third.
Said to be the irst of its kind,
the metso low Solids (lS)
measurement system is based
on light-emitting diode and
laser technologies. The device
dearates, ilters and measures
the process solids, and also
features self-cleaning capabilities
to keep the optics clean for
continuous measurement.
already, feedback from
users demonstrates the saving
achieved by using the
device. For example, a large
(Continues on p. 12)
http://www.absmaterials.com http://www.kit.edu http://www.metso.com http://www.Che.Com
Chemical Engineering February 2012

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