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Replies to post #26036 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence
The polytriazole membrane can enrich up to 80 to 95% of the hydrocarbon content with less than 10 carbon atoms (140 gram mole-1). These membranes preferentially separate paraffin over aromatic components, making them suitable for integration in hybrid distillation systems for crude oil fractionation.
But the paper linked in the first paragraph is the cutting edge of membrane filtration. The authors report a very interesting membrane made from a polyaryltriazole material, highly crosslinked with phenol groups bridging through the polymer. The material is cast into membrane form from a polar solvent like NMP before being thermally crosslinked, and it comes out quite mechanically robust. And it's full of nonpolar pores that will pass small aliphatic hydrocarbons, but not large ones or polyaromatic ones. In other words, you can put dilute crude oil on one side of the membrane and, by applying pressure, drain off what is more or less gasoline from the other. The pressure is about half what you'd use for desalination, so it's nothing extreme.
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