This project aims to develop new equipment and chemisorbent materials for the separation of ethylene and propene from their saturated counterparts. These are mostly obtained through cryogenic distillation, a high capital and energy demanding process demanding up to 6% of the industry’s total energy usage and associated to 75% of the product production cost. This energy consuption represents around 30 months of the UK electric energy demand.
Most research olefin gas separation studies are performed with single or binary gas absorption with pure gases. Instead, this project will make use of new dedicated equipment capable of faster, responsive measurements with mixed gas absorption using the real conditions (temperature, pressure, complex composition of gas mixture) shared by the industrial partner SHELL and use the data to determine the real potential for industrial application.
New chemisorbent materials will be developed based on ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents and others will be designed, characterised, and studied to optimise olefin/paraffin separation compared to cryogenic distillation.
Contact: Dr Leila Moura; L.Moura@qub.ac.uk
Carbon capture research lab at Queen's University Belfast 
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