Enhanced Drying of Pipeline Ethanol

There continues to be a need for low cost production and shipment of fuel-grade ethanol from agricultural sources. Ethanol from agricultural sources has many advantages including developing fuel independence and significantly reducing greenhouse gases. Also, bio-ethanol has significant value as an oxygenated and octane improver. Although ethanol from agricultural sources has many advantages, the cost of ethanol still tends to be significantly higher than gasoline and this will most likely limit its transition into the fuel industry. Shipping by truck, ship or rail is a major contributor to the high cost of implementing fuel grade ethanol. Shipping ethanol by pipeline is significantly less expensive but because ethanol is hydroscopic, pipeline ethanol usually includes water. This water can cause problems in engines and cause gasoline to irreversibly phase separate in ethanol-water systems. Compact Membrane Systems (CMS) proposes a novel and simple membrane process that can easily remove wate r from ethanol so that ethanol can be shipped by pipeline and consequently be less expensive than shipping by truck, ship or rail. Program will focus on unique family of amorphous perfluoromembranes. Working closely with key suppliers, CMS will supply amorphous perfluoromemberaness that do not contain any perofluoro-octanoic acid (PFOA). This is a major EPA objective. Our program goal is to show that the CMS system has significantly superior economics (e.g., 50%) cost improvement relative to existing remedies. In Phase I we will demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed CMS technical approach. The goal in Phase II will entail long term testing of a pipeline ethanol platform and development of the process with our existing industrial partners. A successful Phase II program will lead to the scale-up of a pilot manufacturing effort with commercial testing and qualification.