Chemical Engineering June 2021 - 6

coolseparations.nl).
When an EFC unit is combined
with Comprimo's
desulfurization technologies
(SuperClaus or EuroClaus
with a caustic
scrubber), this process
eliminates gaseous and
liquid sulfur emissions
from the scrubber effluent
and provides clean reusable
water. In addition to
treating this highly contaminated
effluent to recover
water, the process
also produces sellable
salt, which can be used
as a potential raw material
for fertilizer industries.
SURFACTANTS
Unilever (London, U.K.;
www.unilever.com) has
partnered with LanzaTech,
Inc. (Skokie, Ill.;
www.lanzatech.com)
and India Glycols Ltd.
(Noida, India; www.india
glycols.com) to produce
a surfactant made from
industrial carbon emissions
instead of from
fossil fuels. The shift in
production utilizes biotechnologies
and a newly
configured supply chain
between the three partners,
who are working
together for the first time.
The three-stage process
marks the first time a surfactant
made using captured
carbon emissions
will come to market in a
cleaning product. First,
LanzaTech uses biotechnology
to capture waste
industrial emissions at its
Beijing Shougang LanzaTech
plant in China and
converts these emissions
to ethanol. India Glycols
then converts the ethanol
into ethylene oxide,
a key feedstock to make
surfactants at its site in
India. Unilever then uses
the surfactant in the new
OMO (Persil) laundry capsules,
manufactured at its
Hefei factory in China. The
new laundry capsule was
launched in China on April
22nd, World Earth Day.
MEMBRANES
A research group from
the Graduate School of
(Continues on p. 7)
6
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
JUNE 2021
High-temperature heat pump promises significant
energy savings
I
ndustrial heat pumps (diagram) are a
relatively mature technology that converts
low-temperature waste heat into
a more usable heat at a higher temperature
(above the " pinch point " ). However,
the technology has been limited to
applications of up to 100°C. Now, a new
heat pump that can produce process
heat at temperatures up to 180°C has
been developed in Norwegian project,
called Free2Heat - a spinoff generated
at the HighEFF Center for Environmentally
Friendly Energy Research at Sintef (Trondheim;
www.sintef.no). The higher temperature
will make the application of heat
pumps more useful for producing process
heat for the chemical process industries
(CPI), as opposed to space heating applications
that are commonly used in houses
and buildings.
temperature
vapor
High
Condenser
Compressor
ELECTRICITY
Low
temperature
vapor
WASTE
HEAT
Sintef
Developed by project partners Sintef, the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU; Trondheim; www.ntnu.edu) and
compressor-manufacturer ToCircle Industries
A/S (Oslo; www.tocircle.com), the new heat
pump is a concept demonstration of a technology
initially developed by the first two partners
for processing a dairy product line at TINE
(Bergen, Norway). That system, described in
a recent issue of Applied Thermal Engineering,
used a hybrid absorption-compression
heat pump (HACHP) with natural refrigerants
to produce process heat at 100°C, which enabled
the company to reduce its total energy
consumption by up to 50% and become the
world's first zero-emissions dairy.
For the new high-temperature heat pump,
water is used as the refrigerant and a rotary
vane device, developed by ToCircle, is used as
the compressor. The ToCircle compressor uses
water as the lubricant, which avoids problems
associated with lubricants in the steam system,
says Sintef researcher Michael Bantle.
The project, launched in 2019, will continue
to 2024. By the end of this year, ToCircle plans
to have a 500 kWth compressor commercially
available, which can be used for steam-producing
heat pumps.
Modular waste-to-energy system is costcompetitive
at smaller scales
A
newly launched modular waste-toenergy
system is capable of delivering
off-grid heat and power with
competitive economics to a variety
of locations, including military bases, remote
sites and commercial installations, according
to creator Enexor BioEnergy LLC (Franklin,
Tenn.; www.enexor.com). Under a contract
from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced
in April, the company is testing the
proprietary units, known as Bio-CHP, on locally
generated organic waste from U.S. Navy
vessels and bases.
The Bio-CHP units are housed in 20-ft custom
shipping containers that can be trucked to
various locations to provide combined heat and
power by combusting organic material, such as
food waste, agricultural waste, seaweed, wood
waste and others. Enexor has also designed
a companion unit to combust common, nonchlorinated
packaging plastics, such as polyethylene
(PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene
terephthalate (PET).
" These 'behind-the-meter' energy units
are based on advanced combustion, not on
gasification, which tends not work economically
at smaller scales, " explains Enexor CEO
Lee Jestings. " Among the keys to the technology
is a specially designed turbine that
was custom-made for this application, as
well as a high-temperature ceramic filter for
cleaning the exhaust stream, and advanced
heat exchangers. "
Rather than selling the modular units, Enexor
is using an " energy-as-a-service " model,
where the user will pay for the heat and power
consumed onsite, but the company will own
the units. " Application areas for these units
include any location where organic waste is
generated, such as food-processing facilities,
military installations, distilleries, island resorts
and others, " Jestings says.
Evaporator
Low
temperature
liquid/vapor
Expansion
valve
PROCESS
HEAT
temperature
liquid
High
http://www.coolseparations.nl http://www.sintef.no http://www.unilever.com http://www.lanzatech.com http://www.india http://www.ntnu.edu http://www.glycols.com http://www.tocircle.com http://www.enexor.com http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering June 2021
