Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Extraction”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 307 records · Page 17
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Fabrication of Biofunctionalized PVA/PEI Nanofibers for Rare Earth Element Extraction from Coal Mine Tailings

The need for rare earth elements (REEs) for new technology is becoming increasingly stiff with demand at a record high. Biological ligands like lanmodulin and lanthanide binding tags (LBT) have gained noticeable attention for their selective extraction of valuable lanthanide metals in aqueous solution. Building on previous work using microbeads as the extraction media, we propose that nanofibers can improve extraction capabilities. Nanofibers could provide more efficient flow and higher extraction yields due to their high surface area to volume ratio. Relying on thiolmaleimide click chemistry as the biological ligand immobilization route, electrospinning as the nanofiber manufacturing method, and numerous characterization techniques, we produced electrospinning polymer solutions and nanofibers with a maximum neodymium adsorbent capacity of 12.1 μmol/g of extraction media immobilized with LBT. Although the prior work produced an extraction media with an equivalent capacity of ~40 μmol/g, the electrospinning process is much more economical and scalable. This work paves the way for an industrially relevant, environmentally-friendly REE extraction material. Further work is required to produce higher quality nanofibers, to investigate common ion interference with REE adsorbance, and to scale production up to a relevant scale.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2016

Determination of terpenoid content in pine by organic solvent extraction and fast-GC analysis

Terpenoids, naturally occurring compounds derived from isoprene units present in pine oleoresin, are a valuable source of chemicals used in solvents, fragrances, flavors, and have shown potential use as a biofuel. This paper describes a method to extract and analyze the terpenoids present in loblolly pine saplings and pine lighter wood. Various extraction solvents were tested over different times and temperatures. Samples were analyzed by pyrolysis-molecular beam mass spectrometry before and after extractions to monitor the extraction efficiency. The pyrolysis studies indicated that the optimal extraction method used a 1:1 hexane/acetone solvent system at 22°C for 1 h. Extracts from the hexane/acetone experiments were analyzed using a low thermal mass modular accelerated column heater for fast-GC/FID analysis. The most abundant terpenoids from the pine samples were quantified, using standard curves, and included the monoterpenes, α- and β-pinene, camphene, and δ-carene. Sesquiterpenes analyzed included caryophyllene, humulene, and α-bisabolene. In conclusion, diterpenoid resin acids were quantified in derivatized extractions, including pimaric, isopimaric, levopimaric, palustric, dehydroabietic, abietic, and neoabietic acids.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Preparing near-surface heavy oil for extraction using microbial degradation

In one embodiment, the invention provides a system including at least one computing device for enhancing the recovery of heavy oil in an underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment by performing a method comprising sampling and identifying microbial species (bacteria and/or fungi) that reside in the underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment; collecting rock and fluid property data from the underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment; collecting nutrient data from the underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment; identifying a preferred microbial species from the underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment that can transform the heavy oil into a lighter oil; identifying a nutrient from the underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment that promotes a proliferation of the preferred microbial species; and introducing the nutrient into the underground, near-surface crude oil extraction environment.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Benzenesulfonamide Derivatives as Complexants and Extractants for Addressing the Mercury Problem at the Savannah River Site

Mercury (Hg) is a major global pollutant arising from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Its widespread use in medicinal and industrial applications makes it a common chemical exposure and environmental pollutant. It can exist in several forms which include: Metallic mercury (Hg{sup 0}), mercurous (Hg{sub 2}{sup 2+}), mercuric salts (Hg{sup 2+}), and organic mercury (e.g. CH{sub 3}Hg{sup +}), with the latter being the most toxic of all the species. Due to mercury's high toxicity, new approaches towards its detection has received significant attention in the scientific community. Mercury exposure at the Savannah River Site (SRS) has been a recent concern especially with increasing amounts of organic mercury in the saltstone. It originates mainly from its use as an acidic dissolution catalyst of aluminum cladding from target fuels within the uranium and plutonium processing operations [1]. It is present to an amount of about 60 metric tons in the high-level waste (HLW) tanks. Organic Mercury species have been found in low activity waste (LAW) at the site that eventually ends up in the saltstone. Therefore, there is a need for: i) Converting organic mercury to other less toxic forms and ii) Complexation and removal of Hg prior of disposal of LAW in saltstone. Various methods have been developed for selective sensing of mercury in the presence of other toxic metals. These methods include using ligands that can form organo-soluble metal complexes with different optical and spectroscopic properties that can be used for toxic metal sensing. In 2005, our group pioneered an ion-exchange extraction method, in which o-phenylenediamine-derived disulfonamides were used to complex and selectively extract and sense Pb{sup 2+} from aqueous solutions into an organic phase [2,3]. Herein, a disulfonamide and a bis-dansylamide have been shown to extract, complex and sense Hg(II). Ligand 1: The crystal structure of the disulfonamide-Hg complex confirms the complexation of Hg(II) with the ligand. Complexation was corroborated by the {sup 1}H-NMR spectra obtained after contacting solutions of various concentrations of Hg{sup 2+} with 2 mM ligand in chloroform. Distinct resonances are observed at Hg/L ratio of 0.5 that are also observed for the isolated 1:2 complex. In the presence of excess mercury, new resonances, as well as the movement of Et{sub 3}N resonances indicate the formation of a different Hg-sulfonamide-triethylamine complex, presumably having 1:1 Hg:L stoichiometry. The electronic spectra of aqueous phases after extraction show that there was no free ligand absorption at 0.5 eq of Hg, indicating a complete complexation. Complexation was also confirmed by the UV-visible titrations with Hg{sup 2+} at constant ligand concentration. pH-dependent extraction carried out shows that extraction of Hg(II) by ligand 1 was over 90% for most alkaline pHs. Ligand 2: The crystal structure of the Ligand 2 complex formed with Hg(OAc){sub 2} shows a remarkable coordination pattern with 4:2 metal:ligand stoichiometry. The fluorescent bis-dansyl disulfonamide derivative was found to complex and sense HgCl{sub 2} and Hg(OAc){sub 2} by demonstrating fluorescence quenching upon Hg(II) addition in comparison with other metals (Zn(II), Cd(II), Pb(II)). No were observed for Cu(II), Ag(I) and Co(II). We have shown the complexation of Hg(II) by a disulfonamide and a bis-dansyl disulfonamide ligand using several spectroscopic methods. Ligand 1 was able to extract mercury into chloroform and form a complex in the presence of excess mercury by synergistic complexation with triethylamine acting as a co-ligand. X-ray and NMR both confirm a 1:2 HgL{sub 2} stoichiometry. Ligand 2 can be used for sensing of Hg(II) as fluorescence quenching was observed after addition of Hg(II)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

Systematic and statistical uncertainties of the hilbert-transform based high-precision FID frequency extraction method

Pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is widely used in high-precision magnetic field measurements. The absolute value of the magnetic field is determined from the precession frequency of nuclear magnetic moments. The Hilbert transform is widely used to extract the phase function from the observed free induction decay (FID) signal and then its frequency. In this paper, a detailed implementation of a Hilbert-transform based FID frequency extraction method is described. How artifacts and noise level in the FID signal affect the extracted phase function are derived analytically. A method of mitigating the artifacts in the extracted phase function of an FID is discussed. Correlations between noises of the phase function samples are studied for different noise spectra. We discovered that the error covariance matrix for the extracted phase function is nearly singular and improper for constructing the $\chi^2$ used in the fitting routine. A down-sampling method for fixing the singular covariance matrix has been developed, so that the minimum $\chi^2$-fit yields properly the statistical uncertainty of the extracted frequency. Other practical methods of obtaining the statistical uncertainty are also discussed.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Enhanced, continuous, liquid-liquid extraction and in-situ separation of volatile fatty acids from fermentation broth

In 2018 alone, the US landfilled 35.3 million tons of food waste, about 24% of the total landfilled mass. In addition to the negative impacts landfills have demonstrated on the environment and human health, some states have begun to outlaw or dissuade the disposal of food waste and sewage sludge into landfills altogether. An urgent need has thus been created for the development of digestion processes like anaerobic digestion (AD) and arrested methanogenesis (AM) to convert food waste into valuable chemical products. Unfortunately, the buildup of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) during these processes eventually halts the reaction, and energy efficient methodologies for VFA removal are critical for the operation of fermenters. Additionally, VFAs themselves can serve as valuable chemical precursors, and recently AD processes have been modified to increase VFA production during fermentation. However, even with significant research over the past three decades, the separation of VFAs from the fermenter broth has remained expensive. Moreover, the separation of these VFAs from the fermenter broth may cost up to 50% of the entire process budget, hindering the widespread commercial adoption of AD and AM. Here we present a novel liquid-liquid extraction process termed CLEANS (Continuous Liquid-liquid Extraction And iN-situ Separation) as a highly efficient method for continuously separating VFAs from a real fermentation broth solely under gravity. Our optimized process (using an aqueous broth feed pH of 2.5, tri-noctylamine as an extractant, and a 10:1 ratio of aqueous broth to organic extractant), achieved a VFA distribution constant K D = 44.5 ± 7.9, a single-pass recovery = 81.3 ± 2.5%, and an extraction factor = 8.1 ± 0.3. These KD values are over an order of magnitude higher than what has been previously reported for comparable processes. A high aqueous-to-organic flowrate ratio, enabled for the first time by CLEANS, was found to be particularly crucial for achieving optimal extraction. Our separation process demonstrates excellent reproducibility and potential for scalability. The economic and environmental implications of this work are briefly discussed.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2014

Studies of extraction and transport system for highly charged ion beam of 18 GHz superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion source at Research Center for Nuclear Physics

An 18 GHz superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion source is installed to increase beam currents and to extend the variety of ions especially for highly charged heavy ions which can be accelerated by cyclotrons of Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University. The beam production developments of several ions from B to Xe have been already done [T. Yorita, K. Hatanaka, M. Fukuda, M. Kibayashi, S. Morinobu, H.Okamura, and A. Tamii, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79, 02A311 (2008) and T. Yorita, K. Hatanaka, M. Fukuda, M. Kibayashi, S. Morinobu, H.Okamura, and A. Tamii, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 81, 02A332 (2010)] and the further studies for those beam extraction and its transport have been done in order to increase the beam current more. The plasma electrode, extraction electrode, and einzel lens are modified. Especially extraction electrode can be applied minus voltage for the beam extraction and it works well to improve the extracted beam current. The extraction voltage dependences of transmission and emittance also have been studied for beam current improvement which is injected into azimuthally varying field cyclotron at RCNP.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Extraction behavior of selected rare earth metals from acidic chloride media using tetrabutyl diglycolamide

Rare earth elements (REEs) are vital to modern, high-tech devices. Recycling REEs from post-consumer electronics can potentially diminish supply chain risks. Toward that end, liquid–liquid solvent extraction of various REEs was investigated with tetrabutyl diglycolamide (TBDGA) in 1 -octanol from hydrochloric acid media. Metal partitioning to the organic phase was shown to increase as [Cl – ] increased. In contrast, increasing [H + ] did not improve extraction. The use of the polar diluent 1 -octanol provided high extraction efficiency, especially for the partition of heavy lanthanides from solutions of high chloride concentration. Although the polar diluent also extracted molar amounts of water and acid, it was concluded that a neutral metal/TBDGA complex as mainly the disolvate was extracted, and that complexation was observed to be exothermic. Finally, these results indicate that REE extraction from aqueous chloride solutions can be efficient without the use of high acid concentrations.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

Next Generation Solvent Performance in the Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Process - 15495

Changes to the Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU) flow-sheet were implemented in the facility. Implementation included changing the scrub and strip chemicals and concentrations, modifying the O/A ratios for the strip, scrub, and extraction contactor banks, and blending the current BoBCalixC6 extractant-based solvent in MCU with clean MaxCalix extractant-based solvent. During the successful demonstration period, the MCU process was subject to rigorous oversight to ensure hydraulic stability and chemical/radionuclide analysis of the key process tanks (caustic wash tank, solvent hold tank, strip effluent hold tank, and decontaminated salt solution hold tank) to evaluate solvent carryover to downstream facilities and the effectiveness of cesium removal from the liquid salt waste. Results indicated the extraction of cesium was significantly more effective with an average Decontamination Factor (DF) of 1,129 (range was 107 to 1,824) and that stripping was effective. The contactor hydraulic performance was stable and satisfactory, as indicated by contactor vibration, contactor rotational speed, and flow stability; all of which remained at or near target values. Furthermore, the Solvent Hold Tank (SHT) level and specific gravity was as expected, indicating that solvent integrity and organic hydraulic stability were maintained. The coalescer performances were in the range of processing results under the BOBCalixC6 flow sheet, indicating negligible adverse impact of NGS deployment. After the Demonstration period, MCU began processing via routine operations. Results to date reiterate the enhanced cesium extraction and stripping capability of the Next Generation Solvent (NGS) flow sheet. This paper presents process performance results of the NGS Demonstration and continued operations of MCU utilizing the blended BobCalixC6-MaxCalix solvent under the NGS flowsheet.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2015

The solvent extraction of Am(VI) using centrifugal contactors

One of the major challenges in nuclear fuel cycle research is the development of a separation that can be deployed on a process scale for americium from the lanthanides. Unlike most lanthanides, americium can be oxidized to higher oxidation states, and this presents an opportunity to exploit high valent americium for such a separation. Strong oxidizing agents are required. However, the preparation of hexavalent americium using sodium bismuthate has now become routine in our laboratory. The success of separations based on oxidized americium depends on not only the yield of the higher oxidation state, but also its persistence in solution. In batch contact work, short contact times allowed for the extraction of Am(VI) with DAm ~ 4, using 1 M diamylamylphosphonate as the ligand. Based on bench-scale extraction and stripping studies a flowsheet was designed and a hot test was performed in a radiological fume hood using three CINC, 5-cm centrifugal contactors. Stage 1 was the americium extraction stage. In stage 2, americium stripping was attempted after reduction with a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide. As the only lanthanide that oxidizies and extracts in this flowsheet, it was attempted to reduce and strip cerium in the third stage contactor. The results of this hot test are compared with batch extraction studies, where it was found that americium extraction was comparable to batch contacts, while stripping was less efficient than expected. Proposals for the next test are discussed.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Evaluating bis(2-ethylhexyl) methanediphosphonic acid (H 2 DEH[MDP]) based polymer ligand film (PLF) for plutonium and uranium extraction

This paper describes a new analyte extraction medium called polymer ligand film (PLF) that was developed to rapidly extract radionuclides. PLF is a polymer medium with ligands incorporated in its matrix that selectively and quickly extracts analytes. The main focus of the new technique is to shorten and simplify the procedure for chemically isolating radionuclides for determination through alpha spectroscopy. The PLF system was effective for plutonium and uranium extraction. The PLF was capable of co-extracting or selectively extracting plutonium over uranium depending on the PLF composition. As a result, the PLF and electrodeposited samples had similar alpha spectra resolutions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Extraction of 197 mHg with TIBPS in HNO 3 and HCl media

Here, the extraction of no carrier added mercury by tri-isobutyl phosphine sulfide (TIBPS) was characterized in HCl and HNO 3 media. The extraction of 197 mHg as a function of acid concentration was similar in both acids over a large acid concentration (0.001 M to conc.) with high extraction (D ~ 1000) at low concentrations and decreasing extraction for higher concentrations (≥ 4 M). The kinetics of extraction were rapid (~ 5 min.) in both acids. Speciation experiments indicated that the extraction mechanism is 1:2 ( 197 mHg:TIBPS) in HCl and 1:1 in HNO 3 .

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗
DOE OSTI2024

Phosphonate functionalized magnetic mesoporous silica for rare earth element recovery from citrate assisted solid waste extracts

The growing high demand of rare earth elements (REEs) has prompted extensive research on REE recovery from waste streams. This study reports the synthesis and evaluation of phosphonate-functionalized magnetic mesoporous silica (MMS-PP) for REE recovery from the acidic extracts of solid wastes. MMS-PP was synthesized using surfactant template and post-synthesis methods, and tested using simulated and real extraction solutions from citrate-assisted REE extracts from municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) ash. The organic-inorganic hybrid MMS-PP was evaluated for La recovery from 50 mM simulated citrate extract, with the adsorption capacity of 13.5 mg/g compared to ∼2.5 mg/g for non-functionalized MMS. The MMS-PP material exhibited fast adsorption within 10 min, good La selectivity against competing Na + and Ca 2+ , moderate selectivity against Al 3+ and Fe 3+ , high recyclability over multiple adsorption-desorption cycles, and equivalent efficiency for La, Ce, Nd, and Y recovery. Furthermore, the MMS-PP material also demonstrated 70–95% REE recovery from real citrate extracts of MSWI ash, and the spent MMS-PP material can be regenerated and reused for multiple cycles. Functionalized mesoporous materials in combination with organic-ligand assisted extraction can potentially provide a green, effective, and tunable solid-liquid separation platform for REE recovery from complex solid waste streams.

REE recovery↗
DOE OSTI2019

Computational Insights into Fuels and Chemicals Extraction from Microbial Biorefineries

Over the past two decades, substantial investments have been made in engineering microorganisms to produce specific fuels and chemicals as part of the global bioeconomy. Many target molecules accumulate intracellularly, and a challenge is how to effectively extract the product from the cells without needing to destroy them due to the barrier imposed by the cell membrane. For some hydrophobic compounds, an organic overlay is an effective strategy for nondestructive product extraction, although the relationship between functional groups on the product and the rate of extraction are not well understood. Through both biased and unbiased molecular dynamics simulations for a range of fatty acyl compounds and terpenoids, we directly compute permeability coefficients for different steps of the extraction process. Via comparative analysis between the calculated permeability coefficients and observed interactions between the compounds and the membrane, we determine how the rate limiting steps vary depending on product chemistry. For instance, fatty aldehydes are found to transfer very rapidly across the membrane bilayer relative to alcohols, although their comparable rate of extraction into the organic phase makes them equally effective at extraction from the cell. In assessing the terpenoids, it is found that in general a modestly hydrophilic product improves desorption rates into an organic phase sufficiently to make up for their lower bilayer crossing rate. With this new insight, we can more effectively engineer microorganisms towards the production of these modestly hydrophilic fuel precursors or chemicals.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Modeling and MANOVA studies on toxicity and endocrine potential of packaging materials exposed to different extraction schemes

Highlights: • Simultaneous assessment of the impact of treatment conditions on packages ecotoxicity. • Checking of the impact of temperature and extracting solvents on endocrine potential of packages. • Comparison of the package lining spectra before and after extraction. • Ecotoxicity parameters as a tool in packages lining stability assessment. The stability of the linings of packaging that is in contact with the goods stored has been of major concern during decades of the development of packaging materials. In this work, an attempt was undertaken to assess the applicability of using two bioassays (Microtox® and XenoScreen YES/YAS) in estimating the stability of packaging (cans, caps, multilayer material) and the impact of their degradation on the toxicity of some simulated media. The assessment of the impact of packaging storage conditions (temperature, disinfection, preservation, extracting and washing solvents) was planned and performed with i) regression modeling of the experimental effects on the ecotoxicity readings, ii) ANOVA and MANOVA estimation of the experimental conditions as significant factors affecting the toxicity results and iii) FTIR analysis of the packages. It is shown that the effects of temperature and extraction solvents could be quantitatively assessed by the agreement between all methods applied. It can be stated that temperature and acidity as well as the alcohol content in the sensitive media have the greatest impact on the toxicity of the extract and thus on the stability of the internal lining and the extractability of xenobiotics.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Scaling open-weight large language models for hydropower regulatory information extraction: A systematic analysis

Information extraction from regulatory and technical documents using large language models (LLMs) involves practical trade-offs between extraction quality and computational cost. We evaluate eight open-weight LLMs spanning 0.6B–70B parameters on hydropower licensing documents and report deployment-oriented evidence under a unified extraction schema and evaluation protocol. Across the model set, we observe clear scale-dependent trends in both baseline extraction quality and the effectiveness of reflective reasoning (self-checking) under our fixed-prompt, no-augmentation setting. Mid-scale models often provide a favorable balance of accuracy and efficiency, whereas the smallest models show limited or inconsistent gains from the reasoning variants tested. Larger models achieve the highest overall F1 scores but incur substantially greater compute and infrastructure requirements. We further find that reliability failure modes can distort conventional metrics in this domain: in particular, high recall can coincide with systematic extraction errors when models fabricate values for fields that are absent from the source text, underscoring the importance of conservative null handling and evidence-grounded evaluation. Overall, our study provides a reproducible resource–performance comparison for open-weight LLM-based extraction in hydropower regulatory documentation and offers practical guidance for model selection under different deployment constraints.

Evaluation protocol↗
DOE OSTI2025

Borate-assisted alkaline extraction of hemicellulose from switchgrass with enhanced structural stability and purity

Valorization of non-cellulosic polysaccharides is crucial for enhancing the economic competitiveness of biorefinery processes. In this study, a mixture of boric acid and sodium hydroxide was employed to efficiently extract hemicellulose from holocellulose switchgrass. Borate-assisted alkaline extraction resulted in a higher xylan content (59.5 %) compared to conventional alkaline extraction. Here, the hemicellulose fractions derived from the borate-alkaline treatment exhibited a higher molecular weight (M w = 51.2 kDa) and a relatively lower degree of polydispersity (1.28), indicating improved structural stability. The presence of borate had a protective effect against chain scission, preserving glucuronic acid residues and increasing galactose content. Additionally, borate improved hemicellulose purity, with up to 74.1 % of the extracted hemicellulose being suitable for further enzymatic applications. Extended extraction time further enhanced hemicellulose recovery, reaching 97.9 % under NaOH/boric acid conditions while maintaining structural integrity, as confirmed by SEM, FTIR and 2D HSQC NMR analyses. These findings provide insights into the role of borate in optimizing hemicellulose extraction and improving its potential for bioconversion processes.

Borate alkaline↗
DOE OSTI2017

Recovery of dilute aqueous butanol by membrane vapor extraction with dodecane or mesitylene

A novel, nearly isothermal, nonselective-membrane separation process, membrane vapor extraction (MVE), efficiently recovers butanol from a dilute aqueous solution, for example, from a fermentation broth (Liu et al., 2015). In MVE, feed and solvent liquids are not in contact; they are separated by vapor. Therefore, compared to conventional extraction, MVE avoids formation of difficult-to-separate emulsions. In MVE, a semi-volatile aqueous solute (e.g., butanol) vaporizes at the upstream side of a membrane, diffuses as a vapor through the membrane pores, and subsequently condenses and dissolves into a high-boiling nonpolar solvent, favorable to the solute but not to water. Design analysis of a 1.5-m long, 30-m 2 membrane-area countercurrent MVE unit for processing 2-wt% aqueous butanol by dodecane solvent at 40 °C indicates over 90% recovery of the feed butanol with essentially no water loss and with very low energy requirement (Liu et al., 2015). The separation factor is over 1500. However, the published design study gives no experimental evidence for the calculated MVE separation. Here, we present experimental data to validate the MVE process. We use an omniphobic (i.e., hydrophobic and oleophobic), 0.2-µm pore-diameter Versapor®200 R membrane (Pall Corporation, Exton, PA) housed in a 6-cm wide by 10-cm long plate-and-frame channeled flow cell with 0.8-cm gap thickness. Membrane transfer area is 28 cm 2 . The membrane flow cell is designed for minimal axial concentration change and is operated in the transient mode between two recirculating flow loops. 2-wt% aqueous butanol is extracted into dodecane or mesitylene at 25 or 40 °C. Also, 1.5-wt% furfural is extracted into dodecane at 40 °C. Since vapor transport across the membrane contributes minimal resistance, MVE performance is governed by mass transfer through feed and solvent boundary layers. Mass-transfer coefficients are determined from the Graetz-Lévêque analysis of laminar thin-slit flow (Bird et al., 2002). Predicted extraction performance agrees well with experiment using no adjustable parameters. Finally, consistent with the initial multistage-design analysis (Liu et al., 2015), our new bench-scale experimental results confirm that MVE is a viable separation process to recover dilute semi-volatile biosolutes from water with minimal energy requirement. Preliminary analysis of downstream solute recovery from the extract via distillation is more efficient than that for pervaporation because of insignificant water carry over through the MVE membrane.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗