Self-supporting foam-geometry structures for adsorption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional structures used in separation and catalysis processes, such as packed beds and monoliths, suffer from high pressure drops and inefficient mass transfer rates due to their physical limitations, leading to suboptimal performance in gas separation and catalytic reactions.
Innovation Solution
The development of self-supporting foam-geometry structures with greater than 50% active material by weight, featuring tortuous channels and varying pore densities, which enhance fluid flow paths and volumetric efficiency while reducing weight and size.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If packed beds are used with conventional extrusions of small sphere-like active materials, then the structures can be easily manufactured, but large pressure drops occur and mass transfer rates are inefficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies porous foam-geometry structures with interconnected voids and struts to replace conventional packed beds. The porous architecture provides tortuous flow paths that enhance mass transfer rates while maintaining ease of manufacture through direct formation processes. The interconnected pore structure allows efficient fluid distribution and contact with active material surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from zero-dimensional packed spheres to three-dimensional foam-geometry structures with complex internal architectures. This dimensional transformation creates tortuous channels and interconnected voids that improve fluid flow patterns and mass transfer efficiency while maintaining structural integrity and manufacturability.
2Productivity
If monolith substrates are used as engineered structures with active material coatings, then pressure drops are reduced, but the majority of weight is inactive structural material
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs porous foam-geometry structures where the entire structure consists of active material distributed throughout the porous matrix. This eliminates the need for heavy inactive structural substrates while maintaining the low pressure drop characteristics of engineered structures through the open-cell foam architecture and tortuous flow paths.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention creates composite foam structures combining active material with binder materials in a porous matrix. This composite approach provides both structural support and catalytic/adsorptive functionality throughout the entire volume, eliminating the separation between structural and active components found in coated monoliths.
3Ease of manufacture
If conventional extrusions of small sphere-like active materials are used in packed beds, then the structures can be easily manufactured, but the equipment size and weight increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses porous foam-geometry structures that provide high surface area to volume ratios, enabling compact equipment design. The interconnected porous network allows efficient fluid distribution and contact with active material, achieving high productivity in smaller equipment volumes while maintaining ease of manufacture through direct formation processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The foam-geometry structure with its hierarchical porous architecture creates nested voids and channels at multiple scales. This nested structure maximizes the utilization of available volume for active material and fluid flow, reducing the overall equipment size required for a given processing capacity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
These structures provide improved interaction between the active material and fluid streams, increasing working capacity and volumetric efficiency, reducing equipment size and weight, and minimizing pressure drops, thus enhancing the efficiency of separation and catalysis processes.
Implementation Method 1
the self-supporting structure is a foam-geometry structure configured to provide one or more tortuous channels for fluid flow paths through the self-supporting structure
Implementation Method 2
For adsorption process, the adsorbent materials preferentially adsorbs one or more gas components, while not adsorbing one or more other gas components. The non-adsorbed components are recovered as a separate product.
Implementation Method 3
When the pressure is reduced, the adsorbed component is released, or desorbed from the adsorbent material.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~3B
Figure 3C~4
AI summary
A method and system for manufacturing and using a self-supporting structure in processing unit for adsorption or catalytic processes. The self-supporting structure has greater than 50% by weight of the active material in the self-supporting structure to provide a foam- geometry structure providing access to the active material. The self-supporting structures, which may be disposed in a processing unit, may be used in swing adsorption processes and other processes to enhance the recovery of hydrocarbons.