Membrane Facilitated Dimethyl Carbonate Production from Carbon Dioxide

Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is a high value organic chemical with many potentially important applications. DMC can be made from CO2 directly or indirectly. With the development of CO2 capture and sequestration technology, huge amounts of low cost CO2 will be available as a feed stock. The conversion of CO2 to DMC will be an attractive chemical production investment. A major problem associated the DMC production from CO2 is the separation of DMC from the DMC/methanol azeotropic mixture. Currently an uneconomical high pressure distillation process has to be used to break the azeotrope. CMS will use a highly fluorinated polymer membrane. Preliminary data suggests the membrane is likely to have high methanol permeability, high methanol/DMC selectivity and high chemical resistance. With this membrane, we will have a low cost and efficient membrane assisted methanol/DMC separation system, which will significantly reduce the cost of DMC production from CO2. Our fluorinated polymer membrane can be fabricated into composite membranes having thin dense layers of amorphous fluoropolymers on porous supports. Based on this composite structure, existing manufacturing facilities can easily support the growth of a new $58,000,000 high performance membrane business. This would lead to creating 232 new jobs (at $250,000/job). DMC is a green organic solvent which has an extremely low toxicity and pollution potential. The increased use of DMC will be good for our environment protection and the increased production of DMC from CO2 will be good for slowing the global climate change.