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Membrane-based Solvent Dehydration to Facilitate Industrial Solvent Reuse and Remanufacturing
Citation:
Vane, L., F. Alvarez, V. Namboodiri, AND M. Abar. Membrane-based Solvent Dehydration to Facilitate Industrial Solvent Reuse and Remanufacturing. International Congress on Sustainability Science & Engineering, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 12 - 15, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
The poster will be presented as part of the poster session at the 7th International Congress on Sustainability Science & Engineering to communicate research in solvent/water separation technologies.
Description:
Organic solvents serve a variety of functions in the manufacture of materials and products in the worldwide economy. Industries that use organic solvents provide economic opportunity in their communities, but the life cycle of industrial solvents – encompassing the production, transportation, use, and ultimate disposal/destruction of the solvent – presents sources of emissions that potentially impact human health and the environment in those communities. If solvent use cannot be avoided in a process, the Green Chemistry/Engineering principles advocate employing the least amount of the safest solvent that delivers the requisite performance. In many situations, the life cycle impact of using even the safest solvents can be reduced further by recovering and reusing the solvents. The Remanufacturing Exclusion of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s New Definition of Solid Waste rule is intended, in part, to promote the reuse/reprocessing of 18 industrial solvents in the pharmaceutical, paint and coating, plastic and resin, and basic organic chemical sectors (1). The technical challenge to solvent reuse/reprocessing is that replacing virgin solvents with reclaimed material requires the application of separation technologies to recover those solvents from their mixtures with the other processing materials, such as water, and to purify the solvents to meet reuse specifications. These separation technologies present an environmental opportunity but also an environmental challenge because they each have an environmental footprint. The largest footprint is often due to the energy required to drive the separation process, the impetus behind the NIST-funded Chemical Manufacturer’s Roundtable project “Accelerate Industrial Application of Less Energy-Intensive Alternative Separations” (ALTSEP). This poster will describe research at the EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory under the Sustainable & Healthy Communities research program focused on the review, development, and evaluation of advanced separation materials/technologies for energy-efficient solvent reprocessing. Solvent/water mixtures will be emphasized because, of the solvents identified in the new definition of Solid Waste rule, most form difficult-to-separate azeotropic mixtures with water. In addition, the migration of industries to less toxic and more renewable solvents results in the use of solvents that are more prone to attract or mix with water. The research is an extension of successful in-house development of membrane-based processes and materials to efficiently recover and dry alcohol-based biofuels, some of which are among the 18 industrial solvents targeted here. (1) https://www.epa.gov/hwgenerators/final-rule-2015-definition-solid-waste-dsw