NSF TTP-T: Overcoming the Limitations of Distillation through Electro-Swing Separation of Olefins

This project is funded through the NSF Translation to Practice (TTP) program, which supports efforts to translate research discoveries into practical tools that benefit communities, industry, and society. Many everyday products, from plastic bottles and packaging to car parts and clothing, are made from chemicals called olefins. These important building blocks of modern industry must be separated and purified before they can be used. Today, this is primarily done using a method called distillation, which requires expensive equipment and is energy intensive. Additionally, smaller amounts of valuable olefins simply cannot be separated economically, so they are burned off as waste, resulting in over $100 million in lost value every year. The researchers are pioneering a new, low-energy method to separate these chemicals using electricity instead of heat, called "electro-swing" separation. During this TTP-T project, the research team is collaborating with a large chemical company to build and test a working prototype of this process. This technology could save the chemical industry millions of dollars, reduce waste, and lower costs for consumers of products made from olefins. This project develops an electrochemically driven reactive absorption process for separating olefins from paraffins and difficult olefin/olefin mixtures - applications where conventional distillation is either uneconomical or technically impractical due to extremely close boiling points. The core innovation is a metal-complex sorbent solution whose affinity for olefins is governed by the metal oxidation state: the metal complex selectively captures olefins via π-complexation in one oxidation state while releasing it in another. By cycling between these two states using an electrochemical flow cell, rather than through heating or pressurization, the process eliminates the sorbent decomposition and thermodynamic efficiency losses that have historically limited reactive absorption systems. The project will proceed in two phases: Phase 1 will target the selection of continuous redox cycling parameters, including current density, flow rate, and copper concentration, and characterize sorbent capture capacity, selectivity, and impurity tolerance for industrially relevant olefin mixtures including ethylene/ethane, propylene/propane, and 1-butene/isobutene. Phase 2 will integrate these conditions into a scaled prototype targeting separation of greater than 5 grams/day of product at greater than or equal to 99% purity with greater than 100 hours of stable operation. A detailed technoeconomic analysis will also be constructed. Successful completion of these milestones will establish electro-swing separation as a robust, commercially viable alternative for olefin separations where distillation is not cost-effective. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2552818 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Jenny Yang | Institution: University of California-Irvine, IRVINE, CA | Award Amount: $1,200,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2552818 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2552818.html