Chemical Engineering November 2014 - 14

ChementatoR
refinery Project
(Continued from p. 11)
past, there has not been a good way to
obtain the required quantities of CO2, "
explains Ian MacGregor, chairman of
North West Upgrading, a partner in the
project. " This refinery will supply highpurity
CO2 for EOR of wells in close
proximity to the project. "
As the CO2 displaces previously unattainable
petroleum, it is stored underground,
making the process effectively a
CCS solution. When completed in 2016,
Phase 1 of the refinery will process
50,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of bitumen
into 40,000 bbl of diesel and will generate
5,000 ton/d of CO2 for EOR/CCS.
A waterless hydraulic-fracturing technique gets field-tested
A
method for using liquid CO2, rather
than water, as a hydraulic fracturing
fluid has been field-tested in a mid-continent
oil well, and has benefited well productivity,
according to developer Praxair
Inc. (Danbury, Conn.; www.praxair.com).
Aside from enhanced well performance,
the technology is designed to relieve pressure
on freshwater supplies in droughtaffected
areas.
The patent-pending DryFrac waterless
hydraulic fracturing technology depends
on a proprietary process for blending
proppant (specialized sand) with pressurized
CO2 that is capable of controlling
sand concentration before it is pumped
into wells at pressures of between 4,000
and 8,000 psi.
CO2 is said to be superior to water as a
fracking fluid because it reduces damage to
(Continued from p. 12)
clays, and eliminates blocking of fractures
that occurs with water-based fluids, allowing
more gas and oil to flow out of fractures
in the formation. " For these reasons, fracking
with CO2 is ideal for water-sensitive or
pressure-depleted wells, and those in areas
where water resources are constrained, "
says Mark Weise, business development director
for oil and gas services at Praxair. In
addition, the CO2 does not carry the same
flammability risk as hydrocarbon dryfracking
fluids, such as propane.
A portion of the CO2 remains belowground
after the fracturing, says Weise,
making the technology a partial carbon
sequestration method.
Following the first hydraulic fracturing
job mentioned, Praxair is now offering
DryFrac widely, and has other projects
lined up for the near future, Weise notes.
Partnership targets bio-based building blocks from CO2
A
kzoNobel N.V. (www.akzonobel.com)
has partnered with Dutch start-up
company Photanol (both Amsterdam, the
Netherlands; www.photanol.com) to manufacture
specialty chemicals using a photosynthesis-like
process that combines
sugar production with fermentation in a
single organism.
Photanol has developed genetically engineered
cyanobacteria that are capable of
consuming carbon dioxide and sunlight to
make sugars via photosynthesis, and also
converting the sugar into specific chemicals.
" The beauty of these organisms is
that they are efficient photosynthesizers,
they are very amenable to genetic engineering
and they excrete the fermentation
products, which eliminates the need
to harvest product by lysing the cells, "
says Michiel Lensink, CEO of Photanol.
The cyanobacteria are housed in closedloop
bioreactors that can be used on nonarable
land and in areas with scarce
water supplies, Photanol says, because
potassium superoxide (KO2),
which, when simply added
to an aqueous salt solution,
causes a rapid, exothermic
reaction with the salts to form
insoluble oxide or hydroxide
nanoparticles. Such materials
have been shown to be crucial
components in many applications,
including electronic and
magnetic devices, energy
storage and generation, and
medical applications.
Graphene surprise
Researchers from Monash
University (Melbourne, australia;
www.monash.edu.
au) have discovered that
graphene-oxide sheets can
change their structure and
become liquid droplets spontaneously.
Because graphene
droplets change their structure
in response to an applied
magnetic field, they could
be used for controlled drug
release, says lead researcher,
Mainak Majumder.
Usually special equiponly
minimal quantities of water are required.
Several possible CO2 sources are
being considered.
" In developing the engineered organisms,
we have worked hard to de-couple
the growth of the organism from the
production of the fermentation product, "
says Lensink, so that the microbes can
continue making product for longer periods
rather than using the energy inputs
for growth.
Within the partnership, AkzoNobel is
targeting production of acetic acid and
butanol, among other chemicals, and is
developing downstream separations and
processing technology for converting the
acetic acid and butanol to specialty products.
The acetic acid will be converted
into a set of monochloric acids that can
be used in a variety of applications, says
Marco Waas, AkzoNobel director of R&D
and technology for industrial chemicals,
while the butanol will be used to make
industrial solvents.
14 ChEMICaL ENgINEERINg WWW.ChEMENgONLINE.COM NOVEMBER 2014
ment, such as an atomizer, is
needed to change graphene
into a spherical form. The Monash
University researchers
simply placed the graphene
sheets in a solution to process
them for industrial use. They
made the surprise discovery
during routine tests that under
certain ph conditions, while
in solution, the graphene
changes shape by itself. The
observation was made using
a polarized light microscope at
the Marine Biological Laboratory
(near Cape Cod, Mass.).
The researchers have been
working with industry partner
Strategic Energy Resources
Ltd. (Melbourne, australia)
and Rudolf Oldenbourg from
the Marine Biological Laboratory,
to explore the possibility
of commercializing their work.
Majumder says drugdelivery
systems often use
magnetic particles, but the
particles cannot always be
used because they can be toxic
under certain physiological
conditions. The researchers
now want to verify whether graphene-based
assemblies can
http://www.praxair.com http://www.monash.edu http://www.akzonobel.com http://www.photanol.com http://WWW.ChEMENgONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering November 2014

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