For the primary time, researchers on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities discovered a brand new method by which a catalyst could be used to selectively burn one molecule in a mix of hydrocarbons, that are compounds product of hydrogen and carbon atoms.
This recent method could assist in the removal of pollutants and improve efficiency for industrial processes starting from the production of fuels and medications to fertilizers and plastics
The research is published in Science.
Through the use of a bismuth oxide catalyst — a substance that hurries up a chemical response — the researchers can selectively burn one molecule in a mix of combustibles. The researchers showed you could effectively combust even small amounts of acetylene in mixtures with ethylene. Removing acetylene is an important process to stop poisoning of polymerization catalysts, which is important for the production of polyethylene plastics, a market that exceeds 120 million metric tons annually.
“Nobody else has shown that you might combust one hydrocarbon present in low concentrations, in mixtures with others,” said Aditya Bhan, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor within the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and lead investigator on the paper.
Conventionally, combustion processes are used to burn all hydrocarbon fuel mixtures at high temperatures to provide heat. The usage of a catalyst allowed the researchers to tackle the challenge of burning one molecule but not the others. The bismuth oxide catalyst is exclusive because it provides its own oxygen during combustion, moderately than using oxygen from an outdoor source, in a process called chemical looping.
“We were capable of take oxygen out of the catalyst and put it back in multiple times, where the catalyst changes barely, but its reactivity is just not impacted. Operating on this chemical looping mode avoids flammability concerns,” said Matthew Jacob, a University of Minnesota chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate and first writer on the paper.
Traditionally, eliminating small concentrations of contaminants may be very difficult and energy-intensive, but this recent method could provide a more energy-efficient alternative.
“You wish to do that process selectively. Removing acetylene and other trace hydrocarbon contaminants in this fashion might be more energy efficient,” said Matthew Neurock, a professor in Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and senior co-author on the paper. “You only wish to give you the chance to enter a gas mixture to remove some molecules without touching the remaining of the molecules.”
The researchers said the long-term impact might be high because catalysts are utilized in absolutely anything we touch in modern society — from production of fuels and medications to fertilizers and plastics. Understanding how molecules combust — and do not combust — on catalyst surfaces is invaluable for making fuels and plastics production more efficient.
“If we will understand how a catalyst works, at a molecular atomic level, we will adapt it to any particular response,” said Simon Bare, a Distinguished Scientist on the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, and co-author of the study. “This may help us understand how catalysts, that produce fuels and chemicals needed in modern living, react to their environment.”
Along with Bhan, Jacob, Neurock, and Bare, the University of Minnesota Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science team included graduate students Rishi Raj and Huy Nguyen and Professor Andre Mkhoyan, together with Javier Garcia-Barriocanal from the University of Minnesota Characterization Facility. Additional team members included Jiyun Hong, Jorge E. Perez-Aguilar, and Adam S. Hoffman from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University.
This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The work was accomplished in collaboration with the University of Minnesota Characterization Facility and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.
Read the whole research paper titled, “Selective chemical looping combustion of acetylene in ethylene-rich streams,” visit theScience website.
