Chemical Engineering July 2022 - 14

SwRI
FIGURE 4. The EZ Flow chemical platform means
that bulk heating and large volumes of diluents are
not required during the transport of heavy crude
on where materials come from and
how and where they were processed.
The digital twin can also provide information
on sustainability data, such as
the carbon footprint of the materials or
the products made from them.
Earlier this year, Toray Industries,
Inc. (Tokyo, Japan; www.toray.com)
announced a partnership with blockchain
firm Soramitsu Co. (Tokyo;
www.soramitsu.co.jp) to initiate a
proof-of-concept trial for a traceability
system for raw fiber materials
made from recycled plastic bottles.
Once the trial phase is complete in
March 2023, Toray plans to deploy a
similar traceability platform for other
core fibers, resins and films.
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. (Tokyo;
www.mitsuichemicals.com) and IBM
Japan, Ltd. (Tokyo) and are also developing
a blockchain resource-circulation
platform focused on circular
plastics and recycling technologies.
The platform will use IBM's technologies
to visualize data related to the
manufacturing, inspection and quality
assurance of recycled plastics.
Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport,
Tenn.; www.eastman.com) is collaborating
with
SAP SE (Walldorf,
Germany; www.sap.com) to pilot
SAP's GreenToken technology for
the traceability of certified recycled
content across the value chain using
blockchain technology. This project
will focus in particular on specialty
plastics produced using Eastman's
molecular recycling technologies.
Renewable fuels. In June, Gevo,
14
Inc. (Englewood, Colo.; www.gevo.
com) announced a partnership with
Google Cloud to employ blockchain
technology developed by Gevo's Verity
Tracking division to track emissions
data and provide measured
verification of asset-level atmospheric
emissions reductions, renewable energy-powered
electricity for processing
and land-use changes with soil
quality and water impacts to support
Gevo's production of low-carbon
renewable fuels.
Last year, Acciona S.A. (Madrid,
Spain; www.acciona.com) launched
GreenH2chain, reportedly the world's
first platform based on blockchain
technology that guarantees the renewable
origin of " green " hydrogen.
According to Acciona, GreenH2chain
provides information on hydrogen
consumption, as well as data for
calculating the offset CO2 emissions
that consumers avoid by using
green energy.
Improved chemistry for crude oils
Transporting heavy crude oils,
whether via pipelines, rail or trucks,
has been fraught with difficulties due
to a complex combination of physical
and chemical properties. " The high
density and high viscosity of extraheavy
crude oils are associated with
the intermolecular forces between
large, branched molecules, and the
tendency of asphaltenes and paraffins
to coalesce, producing aggregates of
heavy hydrocarbons. Those agglomerations
structurally compress the oil
and reduce its relative volume, " explains
James Wood, project manager
and principal scientist at the chemical
engineering department of the
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI;
San Antonio, Tex.; www.swri.org).
Overcoming these issues with flow
resistance and aggregation typically
involves the application of heat treatment
during transport and the use of
large volumes of diluents or drag-reducing
agents. SwRI has developed
a new chemical additive technology
(Figure 4), called EZ Flow, which can
significantly improve the properties of
heavy crude oils, making the process
of loading and unloading railcars and
trucks less technically challenging,
costly and time-intensive. " Mechanistically,
the EZ Flow process reduces
the intermolecular forces between
and inside the agglomerates, promoting
dispersion. The proprietary
mixture of low-concentration (around
2 wt.%) chemical components, compared
to other treatment options,
optimizes the hydrodynamic cavitation
of the heavy crude oil, which provides
enough energy to enhance the
chemical action without the need for
bulk heating to break up aggregates, "
explains Wood, noting that EZ Flow
treatments have demonstrated viscosity
reductions of more than 60%
in heavy crude oil.
Since EZ Flow only requires a single
SwRI
FIGURE 5. At the EZ Flow pilot facility, researchers
screen chemical formulations and apply them to
the hydrodynamic cavitation unit
treatment prior to loading, explains
Wood, there is no need to heat-treat
heavy crudes during loading and unloading,
and there is no need to dilute
heavy crude with lighter hydrocarbons.
Furthermore, since the EZ Flow
additives consist of chemical species
that are already found at petroleum
refineries, including aromatic hydrocarbons
and aliphatic solvents, there
is no risk of adverse effects to refining
equipment, such as corrosion. And
compared to other additives, such as
diluents, which are added in a large
volume and often must be separated
and recovered prior to transport, EZ
Flow is a much less expensive option.
SwRI is currently investigating
EZ Flow's potential for treatment of
additional products, including bitumen
and other nonconventional oils
at a small-scale pilot-plant unit with a
16-gal feed vessel and a high-speed
cavitation device (Figure 5).
■
Mary Page Bailey
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
JULY 2022
http://www.gevo.com http://www.gevo.com http://www.swri.org http://www.acciona.com http://www.toray.com http://www.soramitsu.co.jp http://www.mitsuichemicals.com http://www.eastman.com http://www.sap.com http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering July 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering July 2022
