Tenoroc, LLC

From Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) 10. ENERGY EFFICIENT MEMBRANES FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

"Separation technologies recover, isolate, and purify products in virtually every industrial process. Pervasive throughout industrial operations, conventional separation processes are energy intensive and costly. Separation processes represent 40 to 70 percent of both capital and operating costs in industry. They also account for 45 percent of all the process energy used by the chemical and petroleum refining industries every year. Industrial efforts to increase cost-competitiveness, boost energy efficiency, increase productivity, and prevent pollution, demand more efficient separation process. In response to these needs, the Department of Energy supports the development of high-risk, innovative separation technologies."

From an article entitled: Seven chemical separations to change the world by David Sholl and Ryan Lively, published in Nature (26 April 2016 Corrected: 11 May 2016,)

"Most industrial chemists spend their days separating the components of large quantities of chemical mixtures into pure or purer forms. The processes involved, such as distillation, account for 10–15% of the world's energy consumption1, 2."... improving separation methods in two areas alone, the paper and chemical industry, could save "save 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and US$4 billion in energy costs annually."

The application specific holy grails that they list include among others; Hydrocarbons from crude oil, and uranium from sea water. Although it seems unintended by the authors, they seem stuck within the paradigm of membranes. A good example of this narrow view is "Researchers need to find materials that are capable of separating many families of molecules at the same time, and that work at the high temperatures needed to keep heavy oils flowing without becoming blocked by contaminants. There are various shortcomings of membrane systems articulated in their writing that include, among others, cost of innovative membrane materials and sorbents, along with maintenance and replacement costs, all of which contribute to making their use as a solution presently unviable.

The authors have substantial knowledge of industrial separation methods, their respective costs and environmental impacts, along with separation applications that beg for improvement. However, they seem to lack awareness that aerodynamic methods of separation have the potential to be applied to many of the applications that could "change the world" be they used as a standalone, as an initial gross step in combination with another method, or as a polishing step after use of another separation method."

From an article entitled Decarbonizing Natural Gas: Methane Fuel without Carbon Dioxide by Geoffrey Ozin | Mar 20, 2018

"Massive quantities of natural gas are currently available for energy generation and chemical production. It has been estimated that the natural gas industry worldwide has already produced around 3000 trillion cubic feet of gas and the remaining gas reserve is estimated at 7000 trillion cubic feet. The global demand for natural gas today is around 100 trillion cubic feet and is expected to rise to about 130–210 trillion cubic feet in 2030."

From: NATURAL GAS INFRASTRUCTURE www.NETL.DOE.gov Contacts Timothy Reinhardt Program Manager DOE Headquarters [email protected] Jared Ciferno Technology Manager Upstream and Midstream Programs NETL [email protected] IMPROVED RESILIENCY LEAK DETECTION LEAK MITIGATION AND REPAIR MITIGATION SOLUTIONS FOR FLARED GAS TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS NETL’S RESEARCH IS INTENDED TO INVESTIGATE THESE ASPECTS OF INFRASTRUCTURE:

"...the volume of natural gas moving through midstream infrastructure has increased nearly five-fold since 1950 and is expected to increase by another 22 percent by 2040. The U.S. natural gas delivery system includes four major elements: production, processing, transportation/storage, and distribution. NETL’s Natural Gas Infrastructure Program accelerates the development of new tools, technologies, and processes that can help industry adopt “next generation” facilities, equipment and components that will conserve natural gas, reduce methane emissions, and improve transportation efficiency. In pursuit of its primary mission, the Natural Gas Infrastructure Program is proceeding along three parallel paths:

• To identify and accelerate development of economically viable technologies to more effectively reduce or eliminate both inadvertent and operational methane emissions from U.S. natural gas infrastructure.
• To catalyze the development of new technologies and methodologies for improving the operation of natural gas infrastructure systems.
• To catalyze the development of new technologies and methodologies for enabling the wider application of “smart” systems within the U.S. natural gas infrastructure that can improve risk assessment, safety, reliability, and operational efficiency."

From the report INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS & THEIR ROLE IN REDUCING NATURAL GAS SUPPLY CHAIN GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS – PHASE 2 SRIJANA RAI, JAMES LITTLEFIELD, SELINA ROMAN-WHITE, GEORGE G. ZAIMES, GREGORY COONEY, TIMOTHY J. SKONE, P.E. DOE/NETL-2020/2607

"Venting is the intentional release of emissions to air and occurs in all stages of the natural gas supply chain. Examples of venting include gas emitted from acid gas removal (AGR) and dehydrator systems.

The total volume of U.S. annual processing throughput is 61% of annual natural gas delivered (EIA 2019d).

Speciation of venting, fugitive, and flaring emissions. In instances where emissions are directly released to the atmosphere, the flaring parameter is set to zero. When flaring is employed, the flaring parameter is activated. AGR is one exception; it is a process that vents CO2 and CH4, but at different proportions than calculated for other venting, fugitive, and flaring emissions. AGR is a stand-alone unit process that emits GHG emissions according to the composition of natural gas and the effectiveness of the amine solvents used by AGR units."

From an article in Hydrocarbon Processing entitled Energy Sector's Methane Leaks Rise Despite Green Plans 10/14/2020

"Satellite images show the number of large methane leaks from the oil and gas industry rose by nearly a third in the first eight months of this year to over 5,000, despite the sector's pledges to reduce greenhouse emissions, data firm Kayrros said. Methane is almost 90 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

Kayrros, which counts leaks above 5 tons an hour as hotspots, said leaks in the year to end August in Algeria, Russia and Turkmenistan rose by more than 40%, above the overall global increase of 32%.

Retrofitting and regular maintenance at oil and gas infrastructure to prevent leaks, venting and flaring of methane is costly, and the sector is currently facing a coronavirus-linked oil price slump and a market glut.

"It's a pure consequence of cost cutting," Kayrros president Antoine Rostand said. "Such increases in methane emissions are concerning and in stark contradiction to the direction set in the Paris Agreement of 2015 (to keep global warming below 1.5 degree Celsius)."

"In 2019 alone, our technology tracked a combined volume of visible large methane leaks of 10 million tons, equivalent to over 800 million tons of CO2 over a 20-year period."

In 2019, the largest emitters were the United States, Russia, Algeria, Turkmenistan, Iran and Iraq, Rostand said.

Pledges to reduce methane leaks are more prevalent among listed producers such as BP and Exxon than at national oil companies.

Kayrros' research is part of a growing effort in recent months by data companies, academics and some energy producers to use technology to find the biggest methane leaks.

The European Union, the world's biggest gas importer, is considering binding methane emissions standards for the natural gas it buys, it said."